Language Maintenance and Language Shift among Keralites in Oman

In migrant communities, parents and children not only represent two diverse generations, but two different languages and cultures. As migrants who still carry memories of their homeland and culture close to their hearts, many are tied linguistically, culturally, and emotionally to their native country and culture. Language maintenance in migrant families assists parents and their children not only to communicate but to also understand cultural values better, which are crucial to their identity and worldview. Although research on community languages has flourished since Michael Clyne’s pioneering work on community language maintenance in the 1960s, there is limited understanding of the role of migrant families in maintaining and transmitting a community language and its influence on identity in Australia. Specific research on Rioplatense Spanish language maintenance and Argentinean identity within the Argentinean community has remained largely unexamined in the contemporary global landscape. In particular, we lack research on how and why first and second generation Argentineans maintain the Spanish language, but more specifically, Rioplatense Spanish and the consequences this has for their experience of Argentinean identity. This thesis addresses this knowledge gap for Australia and elsewhere by examining and discussing the following four themes. First, the central role of the family (as opposed to governments) in conceptualising and implementing language maintenance and identity practices. Second, the influence of familial (endogamous and exogamous unions, extended family, siblings, and language strategies) and extra-familial factors (social networks, travel, language status, and institutions) in augmenting the development and maintenance of community language literacy skills and identity. Third, how linguistic strategies and attitudes are dynamic and play a role in the process of language learning and maintenance, and last, the role and consumption of media (print, audio, audio-visual, and digital communication technologies), and technology in community language maintenance and identity. This thesis analyses the results of a two-step study, drawing upon data derived from mixed-methods research. First, a community-based survey of first and second generation Argentineans from Australia’s three largest cities — Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane — examined respondents’ use and maintenance of the Spanish language and the influence this has on their experience of Argentinean identity. Second, semi-structured interviews with first and second generation Argentineans were conducted to verify and triangulate survey findings and develop insights derived from the survey data. The analyses of the survey and interview data in this thesis provide insights into how the attitudes and actions of first generation Argentineans since the 1970s have influenced intergenerational ethnolinguistic vitality in Spanish language maintenance. This thesis illuminates our understanding by demonstrating how Argentineans in contemporary Australia maintain and transmit the Spanish language, their dialect Castellano Rioplatense [Rioplatense Spanish], and the implications this has for their experience of Argentinean identity. It also demonstrates that although the Argentinean community pertains to the broader Latin American community in Australia, they signal their uniqueness via their use of Rioplatense Spanish. The principal finding of this thesis is that despite Australia’s dominant monolingual landscape, first and second generation Argentineans continue to transmit and maintain Spanish, but more specifically, Rioplatense Spanish. Moreover, their use of Rioplatense Spanish allows them to maintain a distinct Argentinean identity in a multicultural context that otherwise publicly renders them as ‘Latin Americans.’ This thesis identifies four key elements in community language maintenance and identity. First, the family is the most salient factor in language maintenance and transmission. Second, the heterogeneity of the Argentinean community compared to other Latin American communities in Australia is reflected by their distinct use of Rioplatense Spanish, which maintains and ameliorates ethnolinguistic vitality, framing their Argentinean identity. Third, positive language attitudes within families further aids in the transference and maintenance of Rioplatense Spanish in various domains, at both micro and macro levels. Fourth, the consumption of media and digital communication technologies influences how the community language is used and experienced. This is achieved by individuals participating in diverse spaces that use and sustain not only the Spanish language, but more specifically, Rioplatense Spanish, and Argentinean identity. Hence, the use and maintenance of Spanish creates a sense of an imagined community, with individuals sensing that they mentally belong ‘here’ in Australia and ‘there’ in Argentina. The findings of this thesis have implications for promoting intergenerational language and identity within families, communities, pedagogical programming, educational and linguistic policies to facilitate language maintenance and identity opportunities.

This paper examines the patterns of language use among immigrant children from Anglophone African countries living in Botswana. The study reveals major differences in their patterns of language use when compared to that of their parents. Three distinct language use patterns were identified; namely, children who are monolingual in English; those who are bilingual in English and the mother tongue, English and Kiswahili, or English and Setswana; and a third group who are multilingual in the mother tongue, English, Kiswahili and/ or Setswana. The study also reveals that whereas majority of the immigrant parents do not speak Setswana, in spite of their length of residence in Botswana, a good percentage of their children speaks Setswana. Another interesting finding is that many of the immigrant children who cannot speak their mother tongues are fluent speakers of Setswana, the dominant language of the host community. Data for this study were collected using two instruments; namely, a questionnaire designed for parents and an interview schedule for children aged between 18- 25. The questionnaire was administered to 100 immigrant parents from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia. Fifty immigrant children from these countries were interviewed to get more insightful data on the patterns of language use among this population. Convenience sampling was used to identify the participants. The theoretical framework of this study was based on the “opportunity versus motivation” argument on language maintenance and language shift. The researcher recommends that immigrant children should be given more exposure and opportunities to learn and speak their mother tongue languages, especially in the family domain.

Experiences of linguistic shift (LS) and language maintenance (LM) among Saudi postgraduates who had returned home from studying internationally were investigated. Assessment of perspectives of their first language (L1) among the learners and their children was undertaken, in addition to efforts at advocating language maintenance adopted by educational facilities, cultural and religious associations, as well as the learners themselves. Furthermore, the strengthening of language maintenance in particular fields was examined. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to discuss with and observe Saudi postgraduate students, who possessed over five years of study experience in nations where the first language is English. Evidently, no robust ties to their L1 are felt by young learners, even though their language is appreciated by postgraduate learners and they exert themselves to maintain it. Thus, a decline in L1 writing capabilities occurs, while code reversals pervade their L1. The lack of impact on L1 from language shift has been established in recent studies, while the limited duration of the issue was identified in the existing literature. Maintaining one’s L1 is affected by numerous variables, challenging common perceptions. With postgraduate learners studying and working internationally, their instruction in Arabic and English has led to a multilingual society emerging when they return home. However, isolation from and eradication of cultural norms is just one of the various detrimental outcomes of linguicide which stems from language shifts. Accordingly, this study aimed to establish the extent to which a marked change in language ability occurs among Saudi postgraduate learners when they come home.

In this paper we examine the language situation among the Gypsies of Jordan within the framework of previous theories on language maintenance and shift as proposed by Le Page, Fishman, Dorian and Kelman. The study investigates language and cultural maintenance among the Gypsies of Jordan to permit comparison of the relative influences of various social parameters on their use of both Arabic and Gypsy. Here we analyse a corpus of data collected from 100 speakers by means of a questionnaire and interviews. Evidence is presented that Arabic is used for various functions and Gypsy is still used in a variety of social domains, viz. home, neighbourhood, religious and cultural settings. Language maintenance is attributed here to the fact that the Gypsies find themselves unable to gain access to the majority-group culture, and thus they often come to be clustered in their own areas by the element of ‘necessity’ imposed on them by the majority host community. It has also been observed that the social and cultural isolation of the Gypsies from the Jordanian mainstream has contributed to cultural maintenance among them. A comparison between the results of this study and those of Al-Khatib's work on the Armenians of Jordan, another minority group inhabiting the country for the same period, shows that unlike the Armenians, the Gypsies of Jordan are experiencing a clear-cut case of language and cultural maintenance.

Language shift may lead to language investment, and it may also affect language heritage maintenance. This case study aims to explore maintenance of language heritage among a group of Papuan students who are living in a school dormitory, away from their families. These 29 senior high school students are originally from different ethnic groups from several districts in Papua. A questionnaire and a semi-structured interview video-recorded for data collection were employed to find out the students’ attitudes towards languages and maintenance of heritage languages. The questionnaire was designed and developed by adapting the semi-structured interview questions designed by Berman et al. (2011). The data were analysed based on the aspects organised in the questionnaire and the results were compared with the findings of Berman et al.’s (2011), Ehala and Niglas’s (2006), and Nguyen’s (2018) studies. The result shows that there has been a language shift among these adolescents. Living among a community that is totally different from theirs has driven them to adapt and accept the language used in the community. Technology exposure at school has also affected their perspectives towards their future, which motivates them to invest in other languages that they think are important for their future career. Their positive attitudes towards other languages do not discourage them from maintaining their heritage language, as they perceive the use of heritage language as a way to stay connected with their own culture.

With a focus on an under-studied group of immigrants in the UK, this paper examines Iranian families’ language ideologies and practices at home in relation to Persian acquisition and maintenance for their children. Working within a family language policy (FLP) framework, we draw on sociolinguistic data from semi-structured interviews with eighteen mothers to understand how parental beliefs, their everyday language practices and the attempts they make to maintain, improve, or alter their language use will lead to their children’s heritage language acquisition and maintenance. The results of the study suggest that the success in heritage language development and maintenance boils down to parental pro heritage language ideologies and their everyday small-scale practices. It was also found that the interrelationship between language and cultural values and a successful FLP was further reinforced by the parents’ migration trajectory and proficiency in English as the societal language. This research also showed that the large size of this diaspora in the UK (particularly in London), their close-knit social network, availability of heritage language weekend schools and the possibility of frequent visits to the home country create a conducive situation for the Iranian diaspora to raise their children bilingually.

In contrast to language shift, language maintenance appears to be a static phenomenon. Yet this article displays language maintenance as a process, applying the Language Management Theory. On the ground of a case study at a Catholic Sorbian parish in eastern Germany, the study shows that the Sorbian language is maintained in the church through numerous minute interventions at different levels. The findings suggest that the actual process of language maintenance and shift is much more complex than the conventional dualism of “top-down” vs. “bottom-up” assumes. It is argued that in order to get a more reliable understanding of how language maintenance and shift is attained, it is necessary to pay due attention to the interplay of various processes between and within simple and organized management.

This dialogue piece addresses the relative lack of youth perspectives in the academic literature on language shift, endangerment, reclamation, and maintenance. One of the most important ways to address the matter of intergenerational language shift is to encourage the further integration of youth perspectives into these academic discourses, especially (but not exclusively) perspectives written by young scholars who are speaker-members of communities in which language shift is occurring. Through such perspectives, we can gain more nuanced understandings of youth perceptions about language shift in their communities, the effects on their linguistic identities, and their motivations for reclaiming (or letting go of) their ancestral/heritage languages. In this dialogue piece, I explore perspectives shared with me by members of my generational cohort as a way of telling other stories of youth who are engaged in lifelong journeys of holding on to and reclaiming their languages for reasons that are inherently tied to personal identities. By the nature of the array of languages I discuss in this essay, an Austronesian perspective emerges, one that I draw on for personal inspiration: the challenges I face as a Filipino are shared by other members of my cohort who are of Austronesian ancestry. It is an immeasurable amount of support knowing that there are other young Austronesians like me who are fighting to hold on to their languages against all odds. This dialogue piece is a contribution to the growing literature on youth perspectives in the academic discourses on language shift, endangerment, reclamation, and maintenance.

This study focuses on the maintenance of Mandaran as a minority language used by the Mandar community in Kampung Mandar Village, Banyuwangi. The primary objective of this research is to identify the factors influencing the sustainability of Mandaran as well as the strategies employed by the community to maintain its use amid the dominance of the majority language. This study employs a qualitative approach with data collection techniques including participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and document analysis. The findings reveal that the process of maintaining Mandaran involves several key aspects. First, language choice patterns across various domains of life, such as family, social environment, workplace, education, social media, and in customary practices and traditions. Second, the language attitudes of the Mandar ethnic community towards the use of Mandaran. Third, the degree of language maintenance determined by language choice, language attitudes, the role of rituals and traditions, and the intensity of language use. Fourth, determining factors affecting the maintenance of Mandaran include the language's social status, its speakers' distribution, and institutional support. Furthermore, the discussion addresses strategic themes such as language maintenance and revitalization, language attitudes about cultural identity, language choice dynamics within mixed families, the influence of language contact on language shift, the role of economic factors, and the contribution of rituals and traditions in sustaining the existence of Mandaran within a multilingual society.

Studies of social change and language maintenance and shift have tended to focus on minority immigrant languages (e.g., Fishman, 1991; Gal, 1979; Milroy, 2001; Stoessel, 2002). Very little is known about language shift from a demographically dominant language to a minority but economically dominant one (e.g., Bowerman, 2000; de Klerk, 2000; Kamwangamalu, 2001, 2002a,b, & in press; Reagan, 2001). This chapter contributes to such research by looking at the current language shift from majority African languages such as Sotho, Xhosa, and Zulu to English in South Africa. In particular, it examines to what extent the sociopolitical changes that have taken place in South Africa (i.e., the demise of apartheid and its attendant structures) have impacted everyday linguistic interaction and have contributed to language shift from the indigenous African languages to English, especially in urban Black communities. It argues that a number of factors, among them the economic value and international status of English, the perceived lower status of the indigenous African languages, the legacy of apartheid-based Bantu education, the new multilingual language policy, the linguistic behaviors of language policy makers, etc., interact in complex ways to accelerate language shift in urban Black communities. In conclusion, the chapter explores ways in which the observed language shift can be curbed to prevent what Skutnabb-Kangas (2000) has termed “linguistic genocide,” particularly in a country that has a well-documented history of this phenomenon (Lanham, 1978; Prabhakaran, 1998).

In this paper, the educational policies and levels of language maintenance found in the linguistically diverse societies of Australia and The Philippines are compared. The respondents in this study were senior secondary school students and their parents selected from three non-Tagalog-speaking communities in the Philippines (Cebuano, Ilocano and Waray) and from the Filipino immigrant community in Australia. Analysis of the data, collected through questionnaires and personal statements, indicated that usage and positive attitudes to regional languages for oral communication were comparatively high for all groups, suggesting their core value significance at the local level, but were minimal in relation to literary activities. While the Ilocano respondents favoured Filipino for reading and writing purposes, the Cebuano and Waray respondents preferred to read and write in English. In the Australian context exogamous marriages had a negative influence on the maintenance of both Filipino and other regional languages, but there was evidence of Filipino/Tagalog becoming more frequently spoken as a core identifying value of the Filipino-Australian community.

Transnational migration has led to the emergence of diaspora families across various countries, bringing with them their original cultural identities, including their native languages. Within these families, the language is maintained and transmitted to subsequent generations as a heritage language. This study aims to analyze the development of research on heritage language in the field of language education through a bibliometric approach. The main reason for this research is to understand trends, dominant topics, and the interconnectedness of themes in heritage language studies, as well as to map scientific contributions over the past three decades. The method used is bibliometric analysis utilizing data from Google Scholar accessed via the Publish or Perish (PoP) 8 software and visualized using VOSviewer 1.6.18. A total of 450 documents from 1991 to 2025 were collected and analyzed based on citations, keywords, and co-occurrence among themes. The results show a significant increase in the number of publications in recent years, peaking in 2018. The keyword ‘learner’ emerged as a dominant node in the co-occurrence network, with strong links to concepts such as heritage language student, language ideology, and language maintenance. Additionally, a close relationship was found between the themes of heritage language education and heritage language policy, indicating a significant conceptual connection between language policy within families and the effectiveness of heritage language education. This study affirms the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in understanding and supporting the sustainability of heritage languages in multilingual societies.

This study investigated the relevance of emotional and familial factors to language maintenance in immigrant families. Information about the family relations of 40, 9–12 year-old children from Chinese-speaking immigrant families in Sydney, Australia, was obtained using the Family Relations Test, the Family System Test and the Separation Anxiety Test. Information about language maintenance patterns was obtained using a new Language Maintenance Questionnaire focusing on various aspects of language maintenance. Analysis revealed that children who were more likely to use and prefer to use their parents' mother tongue were those who perceived their family to be more cohesive and low in hierarchy, had fewer negatively loaded emotions associated with parents and showed indications of a secure attachment pattern. The results are discussed in terms of the strong emotional aspects embedded in one's mother tongue and its importance to one's psychological and familial reality.

Article Language maintenance and language shift as a field of inquiry: A definition of the field and suggestions for its further development was published on August 27, 2013 in the journal Linguistics (volume 51, issue s1).

This study explores language shift and maintenance of Indigenous languages in bilingual contact situations. It specifically examines how factors such as language attitudes favour and deter the use, maintenance and transmission of Nahuatl. Data on language attitudes were collected by means of interviews which covered the linguistic background, language use, language significance, language shift, language maintenance, and evaluations of Nahuatl varieties. Fifty-two adults, comprising bilinguals and Nahuatl monolinguals, were interviewed in either Nahuatl or Spanish. The general themes identified in the interviews were pro-Indigenous attitudes, referring to the importance of Nahuatl to individuals and the community, purist attitudes, concerning Nahuatl use, and anti-Indigenous attitudes, questioning the relevance of Nahuatl for socioeconomic advancement. The findings provide insight into the intergenerational transmission, language use in the home and community, language education, speakers’ beliefs, and internal and external influences about Nahuatl in Mexico. They provide new insights into the perspectives of adults who represent the parent and grandparent generations, important groups responsible for the transmission of Nahuatl to the younger generations.