ce. For example, after the massacre of thousands of Indians in El Salvador in 1932 the speakers of Cacaopera and Lencia stopped speaking their language as not to be identified as Indians.
- Bottom-to-top death is when a language ceases to be used as a medium of conversation, but may survive in special use like religion or folk songs. For example, Tzeltal in Mexico has only a few older speakers in scattered villages, but survives in the register of prayer.
There is no single set of factors that can be used to predict the outcome of language-maintenance efforts. But factors that have caused the decline of certain languages, can be grouped as economic changes, demography, institutional support and status.
The course of shift
In the initial phases of the relationship between two languages, they may show specific distribution patterns over specific domains. Public and formal domains may be allotted to the dominant language, with more informal and personal domains allotted to the minority language. The home, religion, folk songs and tales usually are the last bastions of survival for the dominated language.
Speaker competence in language shift
Speakers of a language that is in its last stages may exhibit a range of competence from full command to zero. Three types of speakers are distinguished: young fluent speakers have a native command of the ancestral language, but show subtle deviations from the norms of older speakers; passive bilinguals are able to understand the ancestral language, but are unable to produce it themselves.; semi-speakers continue using the ancestral language in imperfect way. The term ‘semi-speaker’ can be contrasted to the concept of the new speaker, about which you have learned earlier this week.
Campbell, L. and Munzell, M.C. (1989): The structural consequences of language death. In: Dorian, N.C.: Investigating Obsolecence. Studies in language contraction and death. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 181-196. Mesthrie, R. and Leap, William (2009): Language contact 1: Maintenance, shift and death. In: Mesthrie, R., Swann, J., Deumert, A. and Leap, W.: Introducing Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, (pp. 242-270).
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