Language maintenance

The Arabic language is associated with Islam and is the language of the Holy Qur’an, which Muslims believe to be God’s words. Due to religious,
educational, socio-cultural, and geographic factors, Qur’anic Arabic is
revered by many Muslims in the Asian Pacific countries, who use the
language to perform religious rituals. Those Muslims use the language as an Islamic lingua franca to communicate with each other. This paper discusses the historical relationship between Islam and Arabic, how this relationship strengthens both of them, and how they both spread across the world, especially to the Asian Pacific countries that have the majority of the world’s non-Arab Muslims. It also sheds light upon the ways in which Islam preserves the Arabic language and converts it into a universal language that is used in all of these countries. This leads the discussion of how learning Arabic in Asian Pacific communities strengthens communication not only among Muslims but also within each Muslim to conduct his/her religious deeds, prayers, and behaviors. The paper also attempts to explore the possibility of learning Arabic as a foreign language by some Non-Muslims in those communities.

This chapter provides a broad overview of the way in which language shift has progressed in the Ryukyus over the last century. It is organized roughly in chronological order, beginning with a brief introduction to the literature on Ryukyuan sociolinguistics. The main text is divided into two main sections. The first is a roughly chronological account of the language shift process as it has progressed in the Ryukyus to date. It deals first with the period of Japanese language spread in the public domains through education and punishment in the early twentieth century before summarizing the post-war era of broken intergenerational transmission and subsequent decline of Ryukyuan languages in private domains. The second section focuses on the observable effects of language shift on Ryukyuan people’s language repertoires, behaviors and attitudes in the present day.

La synthèse, intitulée "Décrire les langues pour comprendre le Langage", que je présente dans le cadre du diplôme national d'habilitation à diriger des recherches, vise à faire le point sur ma production scientifique actuelle et sur mes projets futurs.
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Dans une première partie introductive, j'évoque brièvement mon parcours de linguiste, qui compte pour le moment trois étapes fondamentales :
- 1. l'étude de l'occitan (commencée à partir du dialecte que l'on parlait dans ma propre famille) puis d'autres langues romanes ;
- 2. la description d'une langue créole, le capverdien (avec laquelle je suis entré en contact dans le cadre de mon Service National) ;
- 3. l'ouverture, lors de mon entrée au C.N.R.S. en 1999, d'un nouveau champ de recherche sur les langues kordofaniennes (parlées au centre de la République du Soudan), dont fait partie le koalib, idiome auquel j'ai consacré environ 12 mois de terrain depuis l'an 2.000.
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Dans une deuxième partie, intitulée la description ou le défi de rendre compte de l'altérité, je passe en revue les principales caractéristiques de mon approche (essentiellement descriptive) du Langage, en commençant par évoquer dans un premier chapitre la façon dont je recueille des données sur le terrain auprès de mes informateurs. J'analyse ensuite (second chapitre) les descriptions que j'ai publiées des idiomes que j'ai étudiés : ces travaux témoignent dans leur ensemble d'une recherche de l'exhaustivité dans le traitement de l'objet considéré et d'un intérêt marqué pour la lexicographie, illustré en particulier par mes deux dictionnaires les plus récents, le Dicionário Prático Português-Caboverdiano, "Dictionnaire pratique portugais-capverdien" (Mendes & al. 2002) et mon Dictionnaire koalib-français (en cours de préparation). Je consacre ensuite un chapitre à la prise en compte de la diachronie, un autre thème récurrent dans mon approche, puis, dans un dernier chapitre, je m'attache à montrer, à l'aide d'exemples tirés de mes divers champs d'étude, l'importance du travail de terrain pour arriver à prendre conscience de certains phénomènes linguistiques.
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La troisième partie, intitulée la relativisation de l'approche, traite des évolutions méthodologiques qui ont accompagné mon cheminement scientifique. Parmi ces évolutions, je mentionne tout d'abord la prise en compte des textes, qui m'a ouvert à la syntaxe. Je mets ensuite l'accent sur la remise en cause de plusieurs concepts de base (langue, dialecte, catégories grammaticales), au fur et à mesure de mes enquêtes de terrain ou de mes études (découverte de la tradition grammaticale arabe). Puis je m'intéresse à la façon dont ont évolué les interférences entre visées descriptives et prescriptives dans mes productions, avant de conclure sur la question du difficile équilibre entre le travail de terrain et un nécessaire entretien des connaissances théoriques du linguiste descripteur.
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La partie suivante, intitulée la diffusion du savoir, traite de l'ensemble de mes activités visant à la transmission des connaissances. Dans un premier chapitre, j'évoque mes expériences d'enseignement (cursus réguliers, cours facultatifs et conférences ponctuelles). Puis, après avoir souligné de façon générale l'intérêt et la valeur scientifiques des ouvrages de vulgarisation, je passe en revue mes principales publications dans ce domaine : articles et synthèses présentant mes recherches à un public de chercheurs, méthodes de langue, traductions et ouvrages lexicaux bilingues. Dans le dernier chapitre de cette partie, j'ai inclus une réflexion sur les relations du linguiste avec les médias, relations qui me semblent cruciales pour l'avenir de la discipline dans les sociétés occidentales contemporaines.
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Dans une cinquième partie, intitulée perspectives, je parle de mes principaux projets de publications et de recherches, en particulier dans le domaine kordofanien (poursuite de la description du koalib, étude d'autres langues heibaniennes) et dans celui des créoles afro-portugais (divers projets pour le capverdien, description de l'annobonais et du saint-antonien). Je mentionne également la vision que j'ai du futur en ce qui concerne mes activités d'encadrement de la recherche (direction de thèses, retour des connaissances acquises vers les communautés linguistiques concernées) et les projets collectifs (opération de recherche, colloques) que j'aimerais voir aboutir.
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En conclusion, je mets l'accent sur l'importance donnée au travail de terrain dans mon approche des langues et du Langage ainsi que sur la nécessité de prendre son temps pour produire des descriptions valables. Je rappelle en dernier lieu que l'étude rigoureuse des langue de communautés minorisées (et souvent brimées) peut aussi être une façon de souligner l'égale dignité des divers groupes humains (grands ou petits) en ce qui concerne le génie du Langage.

This chapter focuses on varieties of Japanese spoken in the Ryukyus which have retained a substratum showing certain features of Ryukyuan languages. These varieties can be summarized under the term Ryukyu-substrate Japanese. The text provides insights into Ryukyu-substrate Japanese by summarizing the literature from 1930 to the present day, and traces the emergence of an apolitical linguistics approach in the Ryukyus. The reader is shown how past scholars viewed substratal influence as something that must be corrected through school education, while more recent scholars generally regard it as a positive marker of local identity. This comprehensive review of the studies to date allows the reader to understand how the foci of research have diverged into four main areas: survey questionnaires, theoretical classification, interviews and conversation analysis. The text concludes with a discussion of different scholars’ predictions as to the future of Ryukyu-substrate Japanese.

This book chapter is a diachronic study of the process of language shift in Okinawa. I demonstrate how a language shift profile in the form of a timeline can be constructed retrospectively using qualitative synchronic data. These data comprise field recordings of natural conversation between Okinawans of different age cohorts in combination with parameters such as child-bearing age, life expectancy and the age at which people enter the workforce. As shown throughout the discussion, the results can then be triangulated with other researchers’ accounts of the historical context of each phase of shift. The timeline drawn in this chapter illustrates how new subgroups of people with different linguistic behaviours have emerged in the Naha/Shuri community as language shift has progressed. It therefore enables us not only to see how language use has changed over the years, but also to make predictions as to the future course of shift, i.e. when the Okinawan language (Uchinaaguchi) is likely to reach various stages of decay, and finally, extinction. This method of visually representing language shift will be useful not only for scholars interested in the Ryukyuan situation but also for those involved in the study of other endangered languages.

APA citation: Anderson, Mark (2014). Language shift and language loss. In Mark Anderson and Patrick Heinrich (Eds.), Language Crisis in the Ryukyus (pp. 103-139). Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

This thesis is an investigation into how a dying language is used by its last speakers. The language in question is Uchinaaguchi – the original vernacular of a speech community in the city of Naha (which now incorporates the historical capital Shuri), located on Okinawa Island in the Japanese Ryukyu archipelago. In Naha/Shuri, there has been a gradual shift away from Uchinaaguchi towards Standard Japanese over the last century or so. Uchinaaguchi is no longer being transmitted to younger generations, and older, fluent speakers of the language therefore coexist in the speech community with young people who are monolingual in their own variety of Japanese.

I analyse language shift in Okinawa from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective (known in this thesis as “synchronic analysis” and “diachronic analysis”). In the synchronic analysis (discussed in Chapter 4), I attempt to characterise the speech behaviour of various age-related subgroups in the community based on data from audio recordings of natural conversation. I explain how these subgroups differ in terms of their linguistic repertoires and behaviour patterns, paying particular attention to the ways in which they mix Uchinaaguchi and Japanese on a daily basis. In the diachronic analysis (discussed in Chapter 5), I show how the different subgroups of speakers have emerged over time by illustrating the hypothetical “language lives” of the speakers of each subgroup on a timeline, which represents the process of language shift in Okinawa. I attempt to explain why the speakers in each subgroup have come to use language in a particular way, and how their speech behaviour affects that of speakers in other subgroups. 

On the basis of my analyses, I conclude that language shift can be viewed as an emergent phenomenon (see Chapter 6.3.1), i.e. that the various behaviours of many individuals on the microlevel (the speakers' language choices ) combine to manifest themselves as a complex system on the macrolevel (societal language shift), under the influence of external factors. Crucially, the categorisation of speakers (the individual agents) into subgroups aids in modelling this complex emergent system. I argue that the concept of emergence may be useful in planning strategies for language revitalisation, since the behaviours of individuals in the speech community can also result in the emergent phenomenon of language shift reversal.

(NB: Please ignore the part in the appendix about Southern Ryukyuan phonemes /b/ and /d/. I got the information from a traditional source and now realise the theory has long been discredited)

APA citation: Anderson, Mark (2009). Emergent Language Shift in Okinawa. PhD thesis, Department of Japanese Studies, University of Sydney.

This book chapter presents a broad summary of activities oriented towards the preservation and revitalisation of Ryukyuan languages conducted up until the early 2000s and into the 21st century. These endeavours are evaluated in terms of their success in achieving their aims, and the islanders' attitudes towards language revitalisation are examined in order to ascertain whether or not there was a general sense of the value of Ryukyuan languages at the time.

APA citation: Anderson, Mark (2014). Revitalisation attempts and language attitudes in the Ryukyus. In Mark Anderson and Patrick Heinrich (Eds.), Language Crisis in the Ryukyus (pp. 1-30). Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Abstract
Language endangerment and the need for language revitalization efforts have been at the forefront of linguistic thinking and action for over two decades now. In the same period of time, digital technology and new ways of language use mediated by it (through email, the internet and social media etc.) have become predominant. This paper discusses how language endangerment, language revitalization, and digital language use intersect, and what kind of responsibilities this leaves for the linguistic community concerned with bilingual, minority, and endangered language use in today’s world. It is argued that linguists can assist endangered language communities to preserve their languages, among other ways, by focusing on language use in the digital domain (e.g. in social media): by aiding communities in creating and maintaining a digital presence and in creating internet content, as well as, more broadly, by investigating language use in the endangered language in the digital domain, since this domain has become of primary importance in recent years, so understanding how endangered languages are used in it can offer crucial insight also into how they can be further supported.

Keywords: endangered languages, minority languages, language revitalization, digital domain, digital natives

This article aims at presenting the actions for the maintenance of the Hungarian language and its history in Brazil. The applied methodological pillar for the minority group's vitality and their distinguishing factors was extensive bibliographic research, quantitative and qualitative analysis with a vitality questionnaire and interviews. The formulated hypothesis was, that minority language does not prevail without inclusion and the reduction of the Hungarian language domains increases the risk of its extinction. Finally, the results demonstrate the need for the Brazilian official recognition, for which the promotion and revitalization of the language, and cooperation of the Hungarian-Brazilian communities.
REDIB Ranking: Q4:

This chapter provides a description of the various dialects of Ryukyu-substrate Japanese, that is, informal varieties of Japanese with substratal influence from Ryukyuan languages. Ryukyu-substrate Japanese has developed along with the language shift process over the last century as each generation adopts or discards certain features of their local language. Since younger generations have not acquired their local language, they assign new functions to linguistic items heard in the speech of their elders, or otherwise create new ones based on Ryukyuan word formation rules. The text summarizes the most important studies of geographical and generational variation in phonological, grammatical and lexical contact effects on the Japanese spoken in Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonaguni.

Research in bilingualism developed in immigrant contexts (Clyne, 1991; Clyne & Kipp, 1997; Li Wei, 1994; Pauwels, 2004, etc.) has demonstrated that the use of the ethnic language usually diminishes as a function of the generation the speaker and his/her interlocutor belongs to: while parents use the second language to a smaller or larger extent, their children soon develop a preference for the majority language and use it especially with same-age interlocutors.
This paper reports findings related to a questionnaire study conducted in Crete in 2009 (Xenikaki,2010) with the aim to investigate patterns of Greek and ethnic language use among the immigrant-origin secondary school students of Ierapetra. In particular we discuss the Albanian students’ (N=79) patterns of language use with family and friends and the potential influence of the interlocutors’ generation on language choice. Our findings suggest that our subjects still use frequently the ethnic language with family members but its use diminishes along age lines, something which concurs with previous research. The tendency to use the majority language with siblings and peers is also clear. However, for the time being the ethnic language canbe said to hold its ground in this particular community.

A migrant “boom” in Ireland in the 2000s led to a 143% increase in non-Irish nationals, marking a shift from the country's predominantly monocultural past, to a future that is multicultural, and by extension, multilingual. This report focuses on the Polish and Chinese communities in Dublin, Ireland, investigating individuals' and families' attitudes toward heritage language maintenance and transmission, and the strategies and practices they employed. Drawing on recorded semi-structured interviews with 45 migrants, a content analysis reveals that heritage language maintenance is of paramount importance for first, second and “Generation 1.5” migrants. Many parents send their children to weekend schools. Differences emerge, however, in the two communities' views of the utility and value of the heritage language. Polish migrants' discourse centers on the importance of the language for sustaining ties with extended family, particularly when return migration is a possibility; whereas Chinese migrants focus on the economic benefits of competence in Chinese, which is viewed as a passport to more attractive job opportunities in Asia. All participants report using their heritage language on a daily basis, and place strong emphasis on maintaining literacy, through print and digital media. Social media sites also enable migrants to communicate through their heritage language and maintain a sense of community, either through direct interaction or “passive monitoring” of others. This global inter-connectedness allows migrants to view their linguistic competence not as bilingualism per se, but as a repertoire of “mobile resources,” significantly widening the scope of what could be termed a “digital classroom.”

This article describes the context of the studies carried out on Dutch migrants, at the request of a number of Language Attrition Researchers who have plans to re-visit the population I investigated. It describes sociolinguistic, linguistic and psycholinguistic experiments and data analyses on Dutch emigrants in Melbourne/Victoria

This handbook chapter focuses on two main kinds of discourse mode that have emerged in the Ryukyus during the process of Japanese language spread and Ryukyuan language shift – Japanese with Ryukyuan substrate interference, and code-switching between
Ryukyuan varieties and Japanese. These discourse modes exhibit the particular language contact phenomena that exist in the Ryukyus. The former includes borrowing, hypercorrection, phonosyntactic interference, erroneous language use, vernacular-derived neologisms and functionally altered vernacular lexemes. The latter incorporates both inter- and intra-sentential code-switching.

APA citation: Anderson, Mark (2015). Substrate-influenced Japanese and code-switching. In Patrick Heinrich, Shinsho Miyara and Michinori Shimoji (Eds.), Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages (pp. 481–509). Boston: de Gruyter Mouton.

This short informal paper stems from reflection on an address by Ken Hale, doyen of minority languages (and now sadly deceased). It looks at the role of linguists themselves in the dynamic of language maintenance and the twin phenomena of language loss and language birth. The uniqueness of each language is weighed against the costs and benefits of language homogenization. It is recognized that the majority of speakers are ultimately pragmatists about language choice, yet an argument remains for offering some minority language support to groups struggling with their ethnic identity. Finally, it is asked whether language maintenance or revival can actually pose other risks under certain conditions.

The focus of this paper is on the relationship between Albanian speakers’ ethnolinguistic vitality perceptions and their language maintenance, language use and choice patterns. A subjective EV vitality questionnaire, and a language usage questionnaire capturing domain-specific language use was completed by 200 Albanian immigrants of first and second (one and a half) generation residing in various areas all over Greece. In addition, interviews were conducted with 180 informants from the sample to generate useful information for the qualitative analysis. The findings of this study chime with recent findings on Albanian immigrants’ social integration strategies.  Data analysis uncovers three themes: first, language use is domain-specific, with preferences for the L1 in the home/family domain only, L2 being the language of choice elsewhere especially for the 1.5 generation; second, there are low perceptions of ethnolinguistic vitality of the L1 group across the sample; and third, there is evidence for a shift in language use and competence as a result of an integrative attitude to migration by the respondents, governed mostly by practical reasons.

This article examines Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language practices under the influence of external interventions from a language management perspective. It focuses on the ways the students engage with various levels of interventions in their language practices. The study mainly draws on a group of college-age minority students’ experiences and perspectives collected through semistructured interviews. Findings suggest that the students, in making decisions to use their ethnic language and Vietnamese, the mainstream language, responded to interventions by the school and the ethnic community by adapting to the latter's language policy, while reinterpreting to conform to/deviate from interventions by other individuals such as their parents, their teachers, or their peers. In that process of managing their language practices, they reframed their identity in which both maintenance and transformation orientations were active. Implications related to minority language policy and language maintenance are then suggested. (Language management, individual language management, language practices, language choice, language policy, language maintenance, ethnic minority)*

http://lym.linguas.net/Download.axd?type=ArticleItem&id=66

RESUMEN

El artículo aborda el tema del contacto lingüístico que se produce a raíz de la presencia de inmigrantes hispanohablantes en Italia, con especial atención al grupo peruano y al ecuatoriano. Se presenta una descripción de los patrones sociolingüísticos que caracterizan las situaciones de contacto en el contexto migratorio que nos ocupa, haciendo hincapié en los factores sociales y lingüísticos que resultan determinantes en los procesos de hibridación lingüística y alternancia de códigos. Finalmente se analizan los niveles más afectados por la variación y la transferencia.

ABSTRACT

"Hispanic immigration in Italy: towards a contact variety between Spanish and Italian"
The article explores the issue of the contact of languages that is produced as a result of the Spanish American immigration in Italy, with special reference to Peruvian and Ecuadorian groups. A description is offered about the sociolinguistics patterns related to the situations of contact of languages in this immigrant context, emphasizing the social and linguistics factors that cause the processes of linguistic hybridization and code-switching. Finally, an analysis is offered about the linguistics levels affected by variation and transfer.

Presentación sobre o impacto das tecnoloxías na investigación e nos recursos lingüísticos dunha lingua minorizada: a lingua galega. Esta lingua pasou de ser descoñecida a nivel internacional e de contar con moi escasos recursos para os investigadores hai unhas poucas décadas a ter unha persenza importante en internet e conta con recursos avanzados, semellantes a outras linguas estatais ou non minorizadas.

We humans live in a world of just 194 countries, give or take, but speak between 6,000 and 7,000 languages. And now the globalization of media and technology are hastening the trend toward linguistic homogeneity. According to some linguists, 90% of local languages will disappear by the end of the 21st century. Despite the thousands of languages that exist today, 80% of the planet communicates in just 83 languages. It means that there is no doubt that technology has had a “significant impact” on language in the last 10 years. Progress and development of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) should have a positive influence on the existence of local languages. This paper provides an alternative solution in the use of technology, particularly smartphone, in order to overcome the language shift and facing the language extinction.

This research paper, part of a larger PhD narrative inquiry explores attitudes to, and experiences of, Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It applies Clandinin and Connelly’s three frames: time – past, present and future; place; and the intersection of the personal and the social, to the narratives of eight people with Scottish and Irish backgrounds. Using narrative inquiry and ethnography it presents stories that are resonant rather than generalizable, which illustrate that language is a contingent but still constitutive aspect of identity/ies.

Abstract
This paper examines the increasing concerns about language endangerment in Sub-Saharan Africa, and assesses the necessity and practicality of language revitalization efforts in some situations in the region in light of a number of practical problems of implementation. The paper identifies the need for a clearer paradigm of revitalization efforts, and recommends an approach that recognizes the hard reality that not all endangered languages can receive attention toward functional restoration due to the practical matters involved. The paper proposes archival preservation in such cases, while strongly supporting functional revitalization where the concerned languages a meet some suggested thresholds of viability.
Key Words: African languages, language revitalization, language endanger-ment, language death.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/gjl.v4i1.2
1.

Drawing on concepts such as convergence, divergence and maintenance associated with Communication Accommodation Theory, this article examines a group of Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language choice in relation to their identity and social distance between them and their interlocutors. Our analysis suggests that the strategies of accommodation deployed by individuals can be related to common values/tendencies that are maintained by the groups and communities to which they belong, raising issues about structural influence on individual language choice and agency. We observe that enhancing the ethnolinguistic vitality of the home and the community in which senior members hold the key to language maintenance should be considered vital in reducing the new in-group distance created by young members. Moreover, multilingual policies which enable flexible attainment goals for all languages may provide a way forward for equity and reduction of social distance between different ethnic groups in society.

Authors: Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen & M. Obaidul Hamid

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This research paper, part of a larger PhD narrative inquiry explores attitudes to, and experiences of, Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It applies Clandinin and Connelly’s three frames: time – past, present and future; place; and the intersection of the personal and the social, to the narratives of eight people with Scottish and Irish backgrounds. Using narrative inquiry and ethnography it presents stories that are resonant rather than generalizable, which illustrate that language is a contingent but still constitutive aspect of identity/ies.

This article examines Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ experiences of language choice in communication with people of different ages and in different relations to them in their family and ethnolinguistic community. Concepts of power, solidarity and marked and unmarked choices are adapted to examine the students’ strategies of language choice. Interviews with a group of students are used as the main data source. Findings suggest that the mainstream language was set up as the generational solidarity code among young members while the L1 was considered the power code associated with older members of the family and community. These emerging patterns of language choice may result in disruption of everyday in-group language practices among different generations and perpetuate language shift. It is suggested that explicit L1-promotion policies in the community and minority language support in public domains may encourage young people to engage in language management efforts and empower minority languages in the polity.

Authors: Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen & M. Obaidul Hamid

This article discussed language use and language maintenance among the Italian-Bangladeshi community in London, considering in particular the effects of onward migration on the reorganisation of their linguistic repertoire. Drawing on focus groups and interviews with the second-generation members of Italian-Bangladeshi families, initial findings revealed that Italian is maintained through communication with same-age friends and siblings, with older siblings acting as the main agents of language maintenance. English is considered the most important language and, together with a British education, functions as a pull-factor for onward migration to improve the second generation’s future prospects. Bengali, on the other hand, is spoken by parents among themselves and children are not always fluent in the language. Bengali also represents a marker of identity for the Italian-Bangladeshi community as opposed to the larger Sylheti-speaking British-Bangladeshi community.

This article appeared in a 2012 series on Ryukyuan languages, published in the Okinawan newspaper Ryūkyū Shinpō on 30 August. Using language accessible to a general readership, I tease apart the concepts of Ryukyu-substrate Japanese from bilingual code-switching and put a concrete date on Ryukyuan language death in the absence of effective language revitalisation efforts. I call for the cooperation of the bilingual older generation in facilitating the transmission of Ryukyuan languages to younger people who may be embarrassed about their lack of proficiency in - or perceived butchering of - traditional languages. It is suggested that speakers should give themselves permission to code-switch whenever they are impeded by unknown vocabulary and instead to focus on fluent communication using as much of their local language as possible. I point out that the similarity in syntax between the languages allows for easy insertions and code-switching and rapid progress in language acquisition for monolinguals or bilinguals who have experienced language attrition. The article concludes that more Ryukyuan-medium communication between generations may allow speakers to co-construct a common identity and swap Ryukyu-specific concepts that are difficult to capture in Japanese. In summary, it is proposed that the Okinawan people embrace code-switching as a useful tool in language maintenance.

APA citation: Anderson, Mark (2012, August 30). Gengo heiyō no kōnō [The benefits of switching between languages]. Ryūkyū Shinpō, p. 23.

This publication depicts largely the history of Welsh lexicography in its Celtic context, including a dictionary-orientated description of Welsh. In this context, the need of phonetic transcription, morphologically orientated hyphenation and standardisation of the language are discussed. The book contains a corpus of Insular Celtic lexicographical works until 2002, i.e. dictionaries and vocabularies of Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Manx, Breton and Welsh, of course.

This qualitative study investigates the factors influencing young Acehnese parents’ language choice to communicate with their children at home in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. A total of twelve respondents were interviewed. The results showed that Acehnese and Indonesian were the dominant languages used by the Acehnese families at home. Indonesian was the most favored language chosen by parents when communicating with their children in (as internal influence) and outside (as external trigger) of their home. The choice of Indonesian was therefore influenced by both internal and external factors. This is due to the fact that Indonesian is used in the family circle, in the neighborhood, and at schools. Meanwhile, the preference of Acehnese as the home language domain is influenced by internal factors such as the presence of immediate family members who are active Acehnese speakers and the awareness of the parents in retaining the language in the family due to its little exposure in the neighborhood today. Hopefully, the findings of this research study can serve as a medium of self-reflection for Acehnese parents regarding their decision in language preferences for their children at home.

Drawing on the positioning theory and the conditions for language use, this article examines Vietnamese ethnic minority students’ language choice in interactions with their same-ethnicity and majority peers, focusing particularly on their communication motives underlying this choice. Findings suggest that in regulating their language alternation practices across peer groups in different contexts, the students shifted their participation status – from aligning (being alike) to disaligning (being distinct) – to (re)position themselves in relation to their peers. As their desires for alignment or disalignment were either supported or disrupted by their peers, peer attitudes played a critical role in providing opportunities and encouraging minority students’ willingness to use their L1 in school and ethnic community spaces. Implications are suggested for engaging peer support as a resource for maintaining or widening L1 use among young minority people in both of the domains.

Authors: Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen & M. Obaidul Hamid

This study examines bilingual identity of Vietnamese ethnic minority students as reflected in their language practices, language beliefs and language management. It also focuses on factors related to ethnic-cultural factors, social factors, interaction and investment that influence their bilingual identity. Data were obtained from multiple semi-structured interviews conducted with a group of college-age students. Findings suggest that the students, in practising and managing their languages while being informed by their language beliefs, configured their identity as a process in which both preservation of ethnic identity (maintenance) and construction of mainstream identity (transformation) were active. It is argued that there can be a harmonious coexistence between maintenance and transformation in the same individual under certain social circumstances. For some students however, the transformation tendency inclined to become stronger, and that raises the question of their maintenance of L1 and ethnic identity in the long run. As ethnic-cultural factors seemed to be the most salient influence on the students’ maintenance orientation, implications for optimising the role of ethnic-cultural factors, that are critical for protection of endangered minority languages, are suggested.

This research paper, part of a larger PhD narrative inquiry explores attitudes to, and experiences of, Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It applies Clandinin and Connelly’s three frames: time – past, present and future; place; and the intersection of the personal and the social, to the narratives of eight people with Scottish and Irish backgrounds. Using narrative inquiry and ethnography it presents stories that are resonant rather than generalizable, which illustrate that language is a contingent but still constitutive aspect of identity/ies.

По данным Всероссийских переписей населения число людей, которые считают себя удмуртами, постоянно уменьшается: по сведениям на 2002 год – 640 000 человек,  2010 год – 550 000. Из них уже далеко не все говорят на удмуртском  (так напр.  по данным на 2010 год, удмуртским владеет  325 000 человек). Есть тенденция, что на удмуртском языке говорят преимущественно старшее поколение и в деревне, но горожане и молодое поколение больше и больше предпочитают  русский язык.  С появлением Web 2.0 и социальных сетей как VKontakte, Facebook, Одноклассники и т. д., появляются новые возможности и шансы изменить ситуацию в обратном направлении. Удмурты играют в интернете среди финно-угорских народов Российской Федерации ведущую роль и являются примером:  есть  блоги на удмуртском языке, группы в  VKontakte и  Facebook, которые сообщают о старых и современных традициях или предоставляют языковую учебу для интересующихся, кто хотел бы выучить удмуртский. Таким образом социальные сети и Web 2.0  предоставляют возможность сохранить и поддерживать  язык и культуру в меняющихся условиях глобализации.