6. Language Shift and Death

• Language Shift is when a group progressively abandons its language of origin, at the same time adopting the language of the socially or economically dominant group.
• Language Death is noted from the language shifting, when the speakers leave their mother tongue and use other language, the mother tongue, slowly or quickly disappear.
• Campbell (1994, p 1961) described the language death as “the loss of a language due to gradual shift to the dominant language in language contact situations”.
• Gradual death is gradual replacement due to language shift.
• Sudden death is rapid extinction, for example, Tasmanian.
• Radical Death is due to severe political repression.
• Bottom-to-top death is not used in conversation, but survives in special use such as religion or folk songs.
• English is also one of the major causes of the death of other languages.