language shift and language death


1)      How is the process of language shift happened?
Language shift is shifting the one language to another language, that the one language is not used again.  Or Language shift is a shift or displaces of one minority language mother tongue to language of a wider society. (Holmes)
The process of language shift happened, there are ;
a.    When a certain language has shifted the use of their mother tongue to the use of dominant language. It happens to the younger generation, because they are usually interested in new things, including language.
Example : The young man in Sundanese has used sundanese language as mother tongue, they study Indonesia language and in their society the dominant language is Indonesian language so they use the dominant language in their community.

b.    When someone have bilingual or multilingual language. They have to shift their first language to the dominant language in their society.
Example : The presenter has Indonesia language as first language, he also can speak Japanese& English language, so he has multilingual. One day, he migrants to Australia. So he has to shift the Indonesia language to English language for adapting in their society.   

2)      What are the five factor that supports the language shift ?
The five factor that supports the language shift according to Janet Holmes are ;
a.    Social factor
The minority person to shift to other particular language that is used by dominant people, but the main reason is because the people are influenced by dominant language in certain city.
Example : The students from Indonesia study to America, everyday they hear English language in the school, mall, watching TV, act. So, they have been influenced by dominant language. 

b.    Economic factor
The community sees an important reason for learning the second language. They usually want to reach the highest carrier in their job.
Example : Someone studies English language, the reason is for getting the good job. Because in this era English language is the International language so they can be easy to get the better job and get the batter financial.

c.    Political factor
The economic factor usually followed by political factor. It is the way that is used by the people to achieve something that they want.
Example : Someone learn English language, because they want to get a good position in a foreign company. If they can speak English, they will get the good position more easily.

d.    Demographic factor
It means the people who live in big cities will do language shift faster that the people in a small country, because people in big cities receive so much influence from political centers, while people in small country are usually isolated from the centers of political power and they fell that they do not need to find their need out side their groups.

e.    Attitude and value
When the language is seen as an important symbol of ethnic identity, it is generally maintained longer. Positive attitudes support efforts to use the minority language in a variety of domains, and this help people resist the pressure from the majority group. Its means that if somebody gives a high value to his language, his attitude towards the language must be good automatically.  

3)      What is the effect of language shift ?
The effect of language shift is language death.
4)      What is Language death ?
According to David Crystal, a language death is like saying that a person is dead, so language death is when nobody speaks it anymore.  
Obviously a language dies if all of its speakers die as the result of natural disasters, or are scattered in such a way as to break up the language community. More commonly languages die through cultural change and language replacement, by assimilation to a "dominant" culture and language. This process is broad and complex, but one major factor is negative attitudes to a language, both in government policy and local communities.
We can control language death by ;
·         Gathering information,
·         Raising awareness (both in local communities and in the international community),
·         Fostering positive community attitudes (sometimes people don't want to save their own language)
·         Any approach must promote the authenticity of the whole community (accepting change and recognizing all dialects)
·         Consider language as part of broader culture.




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