Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a
speech community
A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. The concept is mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.
Exactly how to define ''speech ...
shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived to be of
higher-status stabilize or spread at the expense of other languages that are perceived—even by their own speakers—to have lower status. An example is the shift from
Gaulish
Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, ...
to
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
during the time of the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
.
Language assimilation may operate alongside other aspects of
cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's Dominant culture, majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this ...
when different cultures meet and merge.
Mechanisms
Prehistory
For
prehistory
Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use ...
, Forster ''et al''. (2004) and Forster and Renfrew (2011) observe that there is a correlation of language shift with intrusive male
Y chromosome
The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in therian mammals and other organisms. Along with the X chromosome, it is part of the XY sex-determination system, in which the Y is the sex-determining chromosome because the presence of the ...
s but not necessarily with intrusive female
mtDNA. They conclude that technological innovation (the transition from
hunting-gathering to
farming
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...
, or from
stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
to
metal
A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...
tools) or military prowess (as in the
abduction of British women by
Vikings
Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...
to
Iceland
Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
) causes immigration of at least some men, who are perceived to be of higher status than local men. Then, in mixed-language marriages, children would speak the "higher-status" language, yielding the language/Y-chromosome correlation seen today.
Assimilation is the process whereby a speech-community becomes
bilingual
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...
and gradually shifts allegiance to the second language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of the speech-community that speaks the second language more often at home. The data are used to measure the use of a given language in the lifetime of a person, or most often across generations. When a speech-community ceases to use their original language,
language death is said to occur.
Indo-European migrations
In the context of the Indo-European migrations, it has been noted that small groups can change a larger cultural area.
Michael Witzel
Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943) is a German-American philologist, comparative mythologist and Indologist. Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series (volumes 50–100). He ...
refers to Ehret's model "which stresses the
osmosis
Osmosis (, ) is the spontaneous net movement or diffusion of solvent molecules through a selectively permeable membrane, selectively-permeable membrane from a region of high water potential (region of lower solute concentration) to a region of ...
, or a "billiard ball," or
Mallory's ''Kulturkugel'', effect of cultural transmission." According to Ehret, ethnicity and language can shift with relative ease in small societies, due to the cultural, economic and military choices made by the local population in question. The group bringing new traits may initially be small, contributing features that can be fewer in number than those of the already local culture. The emerging combined group may then initiate a recurrent, expansionist process of ethnic and language shift.
David Anthony notes that the spread of the Indo-European languages probably did not happen through "chain-type folk migrations", but by the introduction of these languages by ritual and political elites, which are emulated by large groups of people. Anthony explains:
Anthony gives the example of the Luo-speaking Acholi in northern Uganda in the 17th and 18th century, whose language spread rapidly in the 19th century. Anthony notes that "Indo-European languages probably spread in a similar way among the tribal societies of prehistoric Europe", carried forward by "Indo-European chiefs" and their "ideology of political clientage". Anthony notes that "elite recruitment" may be a suitable term for this system.
Modern society
In urban settings, language change occurs due to the combination of three factors: the diversity of languages spoken, the high population density, and the need for communication. Urban vernaculars, urban contact varieties, and multiethnolects emerge in many cities around the world as a result of language change in urban settings. These factors lead to phenomena such as dialect levelling,
koineization, and/or language shift toward a dominant language.
Examples
Liturgical language
Historical examples for status shift are the early
Welsh and
Lutheran Bible translations.
Austria
Until the mid-19th century, southern
Carinthia
Carinthia ( ; ; ) is the southernmost and least densely populated States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The Lake Wolayer is a mountain lake on the Carinthian side of the Carnic Main ...
in
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
had an overwhelming
Slovene-speaking majority: in the 1820s, around 97% of the inhabitants south of the line
Villach-
Klagenfurt-
Diex spoke Slovene as their native language. In the course of the 19th century, this number fell significantly. By 1920, a third of the population of the area had already shifted to
German as their main language of communication. After the
Carinthian Plebiscite in the 1920s, and especially after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, most of the population shifted from Slovene to German. In the same region, today only some 13% of the people speak Slovene, while more than 85% of the population speak German. The figures for the whole region are equally telling: in 1818, around 35% of the population of Carinthia spoke Slovene; by 1910, this number had fallen to 15.6% and by 2001 to 2.3%. These changes were almost entirely the result of a language shift in the population, with emigration and genocide (by the Nazis during World War II) playing only a minor role.
Belarus
Despite the withdrawal of
Belarus
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
from the USSR proclaimed in 1991, use of the
Belarusian language
Belarusian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language. It is one of the two Languages of Belarus, official languages in Belarus, the other being Russian language, Russian. It is also spoken in parts of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Polan ...
is declining. According to the 2009 Belarusian population census, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home,
[ and Belarusian is used by only 11.9% of Belarusians.][ 52.5% of Belarusians can speak and read Belarusian. Only 29.4% can speak, read and write it.][ One in ten Belarusians do not understand the Belarusian language.]
Belgium
In the last two centuries, Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
has transformed from an exclusively Dutch-speaking city to a bilingual city with French as the majority language and lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
. The language shift began in the 18th century and accelerated as Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
became independent and Brussels expanded out past its original city boundaries.["Wallonie - Bruxelles", Le Service de la langue française, 19/05/1997](_blank)
From 1880 on, more and more Dutch-speaking people became bilingual, resulting in a rise of monolingual French-speakers after 1910.
Halfway through the 20th century, the number of monolingual French-speakers began to predominate over the (mostly) bilingual Flemish inhabitants. Only since the 1960s, after the establishment of the Belgian language border and the socio-economic development of Flanders took full effect, could Dutch use stem the tide of increasing French use. French remains the city's predominant language, while Dutch is spoken by a minority.
Canada
China
Historically, one of the most important language shifts in China has been the near disappearance of the Manchu language
Manchu ( ) is a critically endangered language, endangered Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China.
As the traditional native language of the Manchu people, Manchus, it was one of the official language ...
. When China was ruled by the Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
, whose Emperors were Manchu, Chinese and Manchu had co-official status, and the Emperor heavily subsidized and promoted education in Manchu, but because most of the Manchu Eight Banners lived in garrisons with Mandarin-speaking Han Bannermen located across Han Chinese civilian populated cities, most Manchus spoke the Beijing dialect of Mandarin by the 19th century and the only Manchu speakers were garrisons left in their homeland of Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...
. Today there are fewer than 100 native speakers of Manchu.
At the current time, language shift is occurring all across China. Many languages of minority ethnic groups are declining, as well as the many regional varieties of Chinese
There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...
. Generally the shift is in favour of Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...
( Mandarin), but in the province of Guangdong
) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...
the cultural influence of Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
has meant local dialects and languages are being abandoned for Cantonese instead.
Languages like Tujia and Evenki are also disappearing due to language shift.
;Hong Kong
In Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
, Cantonese has become the dominant language spoken in society since widespread immigration to Hong Kong began in the 1940s. With immigrants of differing mother tongues, communication was hard without a dominant language. Cantonese originated from the capital of neighboring Canton province, and it became the dominant language by extension, and other similar dialects started to vanish from use in Hong Kong. Original residents, or aboriginals, of Hong Kong used their own languages including the Tanka, Hakka and Waitau dialect, but with a majority of Hong Kong's population being immigrants by the 1940s and 50s, these dialects rapidly vanished. Most of Hong Kong's younger generation does not understand, let alone speak, their ancestral dialects.
Beginning in the late 1990s, since Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty, Mandarin Chinese has been more widely implemented in education and many other areas of official society. Though Mandarin Chinese has been quickly adopted into society, most Hong Kong residents would not regard it as a first language/dialect. Most Hong Kong residents prefer to communicate in Cantonese in daily life.
Speakers of Mandarin Chinese and of Cantonese cannot mutually understand each other without learning the languages, due to vast differences in pronunciation, intonation, sentence structure and terminology. Furthermore, cultural differences between Hong Kong and China result in variations between the Cantonese used in Hong Kong and that in Canton Province.
Egypt
In Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
, the Coptic language
Coptic () is a dormant language, dormant Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language. It is a group of closely related Egyptian dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Ancient Egyptian language, Egyptian language, and histori ...
, a descendant of the Afro-Asiatic
The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...
Egyptian language
The Egyptian language, or Ancient Egyptian (; ), is an extinct branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts, which were made accessible to the modern world ...
, has been in decline in usage since the time of the Arab conquest in the 7th century. By the 17th century, it was eventually supplanted as a spoken language by Egyptian Arabic. Coptic is today mainly used by the Coptic Church as a liturgical language. In the Siwa Oasis
The Siwa Oasis ( ) is an urban oasis in Egypt. It is situated between the Qattara Depression and the Great Sand Sea in the Western Desert (Egypt), Western Desert, east of the Egypt–Libya border and from the Egyptian capital city of Cairo. I ...
, a local variety of Berber
Berber or Berbers may refer to:
Ethnic group
* Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa
* Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages
Places
* Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile
People with the surname
* Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
is also used alongside Arabic.
Ethiopia
In Ethiopia
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
, various populations of Nilotic
The Nilotic peoples are peoples Indigenous people of Africa, indigenous to South Sudan and the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan and the Gambela Region of Ethiopia, while also being a large minority in Kenya, Uga ...
origin have shifted languages over the centuries, adopting the idioms of their Afro-Asiatic-speaking neighbors in the northern areas. Among these groups are the Daasanach or Marille, who today speak the Daasanach language. It belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. However, modern genetic analysis of the Daasanach indicates that they are more closely related to Nilo-Saharan
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...
and Niger-Congo-speaking populations inhabiting Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
than they are to the Cushitic and Semitic Afro-Asiatic-speaking populations of Ethiopia. This suggests that the Daasanach were originally Nilo-Saharan speakers, sharing common origins with the Pokot. In the 19th century, the Nilotic ancestors of these two populations are believed to have begun separate migrations, with one group heading southwards into the African Great Lakes
The African Great Lakes (; ) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tangan ...
region and the other group settling in southern Ethiopia. There, the early Daasanach Nilotes would have come into contact with a Cushitic-speaking population, and eventually adopted this group's Afro-Asiatic language.
Finland
Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
still has coastal Swedish-speaking enclaves, unlike Estonia
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
where the last coastal Swedes were decimated or escaped to Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
in 1944. As Finland was part of the Sweden realm from the Middle Ages until 1809, the language of education was Swedish, with Finnish being allowed as a medium of education at the university
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
only in the 19th century, and the first thesis in Finnish being published in 1858. Several of the coastal cities were multilingual; Viipuri had newspapers in Swedish, Finnish, Russian and German. However, the industrialization in the prewar era and especially the postwar era and the "escape from the countryside" of the 1960s changed the demography of the major cities and led to Finnish dominating. While Helsinki
Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...
was a predominantly Swedish-speaking city prior to the turn of the 20th century, the Swedish-speaking minority is now about 6% of the population.
France
;Alsace and Lorraine
In Alsace
Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...
, France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, a longtime Alsatian-speaking region, the native Germanic dialect has been declining after a period of being banned at school by the French government after the First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
and the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. It is being replaced by French.
;French Flanders
French Flanders, which gradually became part of France between 1659 and 1678, was historically part of the Dutch sprachraum, the native dialect being West Flemish ( French Flemish). This is corroborated by the Dutch origin of several town names in the region, such as that of 'Dunkerque' (Dunkirk
Dunkirk ( ; ; ; Picard language, Picard: ''Dunkèke''; ; or ) is a major port city in the Departments of France, department of Nord (French department), Nord in northern France. It lies from the Belgium, Belgian border. It has the third-larg ...
) which is a French phonetic rendition of the original Dutch name 'Duinkerke' (meaning 'church in the dunes'). The linguistic situation did not change dramatically until the French Revolution in 1789, and Dutch continued to fulfill the main functions of a cultural language throughout the 18th century. During the 19th century, especially in the second half of it, Dutch was banned from all levels of education and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. The larger cities had become predominantly French-speaking by the end of the 19th century.
However, in the countryside, many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch until World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, and the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
continued to preach and teach the catechism
A catechism (; from , "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of Catholic theology, doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult co ...
in Flemish in many parishes. Nonetheless, since French enjoyed a much higher status than Dutch, from about the interbellum onward, everybody became bilingual, the generation born after World War II being raised exclusively in French. In the countryside, the passing on of Flemish stopped during the 1930s or 1940s. Consequently, the vast majority of those still having an active command of Flemish are older than 60. Therefore, complete extinction of French Flemish can be expected in the coming decades.[, by Hugo Ryckeboer. University of Ghent.]
;Basque Country
The French Basque Country
The French Basque Country (; ; ), or Northern Basque Country (, or , ), is a region lying on the west of the French department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Since 1 January 2017, it constitutes the Basque Municipal Community (; ) presided ...
has been subject to intense French-language pressure exerted over the Basque-speaking communities. In the late 1800s, the Basque language
Basque ( ; ) is a language spoken by Basques and other residents of the Basque Country (greater region), Basque Country, a region that straddles the westernmost Pyrenees in adjacent parts of northern Spain and southwestern France. Basque ...
was both persecuted and excluded from administration and official public use during the takeover of the National Convention
The National Convention () was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the ...
, during the War of the Pyrenees, and during the Napoleonic period
The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and history of Europe, Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly (French Revoluti ...
. The compulsory national education system imposed early on a French-only approach (mid-19th century), marginalizing Basque, and by the 1960s family transmission was grinding to a halt in many areas at the feet of the Pyrenees.
By the 2010s, the receding trend has been somewhat mitigated by the establishment of Basque schooling (the '' ikastolak'') spearheaded by the network Seaska, as well as the influence of the Basque territories from Spain.
;Brittany
According to Fañch Broudic, Breton has lost 80% of its speakers in 60 years. Other sources mention that 70% of Breton speakers are over 60. Furthermore, 60% of children received Breton from their parents in the 1920s and only 6% in the 1980s. Since the 1980s, monolingual speakers are no longer attested.
On the 27 October 2015, the Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
rejected the draft law on ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, t ...
driving away the assumption of Congress for the adoption of the constitutional reform which would have given value and legitimacy to regional languages such as Breton.
;Corsica
Corsican was long employed as a conglomerate of local vernacular
Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...
s in combination with Italian, the official language in Corsica until 1859; afterwards Italian was replaced by French, owing to the acquisition of the island by France from Genoa
Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...
in 1768. Over the next two centuries, the use of French grew to the extent that, by the Liberation in 1945, all islanders had a working knowledge of French. The 20th century saw a wholesale language shift, with islanders changing their language practices to the extent that there were no monolingual Corsican speakers left by the 1960s. By 1995, an estimated 65 percent of islanders had some degree of proficiency in Corsican, and a small minority, perhaps 10 percent, used Corsican as a first language.[ To access the data, click on List by languages, Corsican, Corsican in France, then scroll to ''Geographical and language background''.]
;Occitania
Germany
;Southern Schleswig
In Southern Schleswig, an area that belonged to Denmark until the Second Schleswig War
The Second Schleswig War (; or German Danish War), also sometimes known as the Dano-Prussian War or Prusso-Danish War, was the second military conflict over the Schleswig–Holstein question of the nineteenth century. The war began on 1 Februar ...
, there was a language shift from the 17th to the 20th centuries from Danish and North Frisian dialects to Low German and later High German. Historically, most of the region was part of the Danish and North Frisian language area, adjacent in the south to the German-speaking Holstein. But with the Reformation
The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
in the 16th century German became the language of the Church, and in the 19th century also that of schools in the southern parts of Schleswig. Added to this was the influence of German-speaking Holsatian nobility and traders. German was (occasionally) also spoken at the royal court in Copenhagen. This political and economic development led gradually to a German language dominating in the southern parts of Schleswig. Native dialects such as the Angel Danish and Eiderstedt Frisian vanished. In the Flensburg
Flensburg (; Danish language, Danish and ; ; ) is an independent city, independent town in the far north of the Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. After Kiel and Lübeck, it is the third-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein.
Flensburg's ...
area, there arose the mixed language Petuh combining Danish and German elements. As late as in 1851 (in the period of nationalization) the Danish government tried to stop the language shift, but without success in the long run. After the Second Schleswig War the Prussians introduced a number of language policy measures in the opposite direction to expand the use of (High) German as the language of administration, schooling and church services.
Today, Danish and North Frisian are recognized as minority languages in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein (; ; ; ; ; occasionally in English ''Sleswick-Holsatia'') is the Northern Germany, northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical Duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of S ...
.
Hungary
Cumans
The Cumans or Kumans were a Turkic people, Turkic nomadic people from Central Asia comprising the western branch of the Cumania, Cuman–Kipchak confederation who spoke the Cuman language. They are referred to as Polovtsians (''Polovtsy'') in Ru ...
, seeking refuge from the Mongols
Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...
, settled in Hungary and were later Magyarized. The Jassic people of Hungary originally spoke the Jassic dialect of Ossetic, but they fully adopted Magyar, forgetting their former language. The territory of today's Hungary was formerly settled by Slavonic tribes, which gradually assimilated to Magyar. Also, language shift may have happened in Hungarian pre-history, as the prehistoric culture of Magyars shows very little similarity to that of speakers of other Uralic languages.
India
In India, many languages are assimilated into standard language like Hindi
Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
, Bengali and other administrative languages. For example, the Austroasiatic-speaking Bhumij tribe for over two centuries nearly abandoned their native language and adopted Bengali and Odia instead. Today, the Bhumij language is one of the endangered language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...
s of India.
Indonesia
Indonesia is one of the most multilingual and multiethnic nations in the world. There is language shift of first language into Indonesian from other language in Indonesia caused by ethnic diversity than urbanicity. Regardless of urbanicity, Indonesian speakers are more prevalent in urban areas than rural ones. The study found that language shift is mainly occurring among Javanese people
The Javanese ( , ; ) are an Austronesian peoples, Austronesian ethnic group native to the central and eastern part of the Indonesian island of Java. With more than 100 million people, Javanese people are the largest ethnic group in both Indo ...
and in districts where Javanese is the dominant language, which is not what was expected. Another study suggests Javanese youths do not value Javanese language and culture as much as the national Indonesian language and culture because they perceive them as outdated and incompatible with modern society.
Ireland
Israel
An example is the shift from Canaanite and Phoenician and Hebrew to Aramaic in and around Jerusalem during the time of Classical Antiquity. Another example is during the Middle Ages, when shifting from Aramaic to Arabic through the advent of Islam. A third shift took place in Modern times, under the influence of Zionism
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
, from Jewish languages
Jewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the Jewish diaspora, diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following the Babylonian capti ...
such as Yiddish
Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
, Ladino and various dialects of Judeo-Arabic
Judeo-Arabic (; ; ) sometimes referred as Sharh, are a group of different ethnolects within the branches of the Arabic language used by jewish communities. Although Jewish use of Arabic, which predates Islam, has been in some ways distinct ...
to Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...
.
Italy
The Italian peninsula, the Po river
The Po ( , ) is the longest river in Italy. It flows eastward across northern Italy, starting from the Cottian Alps. The river's length is , or if the Maira (river), Maira, a right bank tributary, is included. The headwaters of the Po are forme ...
basin and the nearby islands are home to various languages, most of which are Latin-derived. Italy would be politically organized into states until the late 19th century.
Since the times of the Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
, a trans-Italian language was developed in central Italy, based on Florentine Tuscan; in light of its cultural prestige, it was used for formal, literary and written purposes among the literate classes from the various states of mainland Italy, Sicily
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
and Corsica (France), sidelining the other dialects in education and formal settings. Thus, literary Florentine was established as the most representative dialect of Italy long before its political unification in 1861, Tuscan having been officially adopted by the preunitarian states. Italian further expanded as a common language for everyday use throughout the country after World War II.
Most other languages, with the exception of those spoken by specific ethno-linguistic groups, long served as local vernaculars alongside Italian; therefore they have been mislabelled "dialects" by their own speakers, but they are still usually spoken just as much as standard Italian in a diglossic spectrum with little conflict.
For instance, the local Venetian dialects in Northeast Italy are widely used and locally promoted in the region; after all, Italian had been an integral part of the Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a sovereign state and Maritime republics, maritime republic with its capital in Venice. Founded, according to tradition, in 697 ...
since the 14th century, whose elites used to revere the most prominent Tuscan authors and tuscanize their own speech as well. On a survey made by Il Gazzettino in 2015, 70% of respondents told they spoke Venetian "very or quite often" in the family, while 68% with friends. A much lower percentage reported to use it at work (35%); the local language is less used in formal situations. However, the frequency of use within the family networks and friendship stopped respectively at -4 and -11 percentage points, suggesting a slow morphing to Italian, while the use in the workplace dropped to -22 percentage points. A visible generational gap has also been noted, since the students and young people under the age of 25 are the social group where the use of dialect fell below the threshold of absolute majority (respectively 43 and 41%). Nonetheless, despite some tendencies signalling the slow advancement of standard Italian, the local dialects of Veneto
Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the Northeast Italy, north-east of the country. It is the fourth most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is t ...
and the Province of Trieste are still widely spoken alongside Italian; like in much of Italy, the presence of Italian in Northeast Italy does not seem to take anything away from the region's linguistic heritage.
Like the aforementioned case of Northeast Italy, even in Southern Italy
Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions.
The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...
and Sicily
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
the local dialects from the Italo-Dalmatian family are widely used in combination with standard Italian, depending upon the social context. More specifically, Italian as the prevalent language spoken among family members is spoken the least in Campania
Campania is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy located in Southern Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian Peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islan ...
(20.7%), Calabria
Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...
(25.3%) and Sicily
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
(26.6%), contrary to frequency of use of the local dialects ( Basilicata, 69.4%; Calabria 68.6%; Campania, 75.2%; Sicily, 68.8%).
;Germanic languages
Trentino
Trentino (), officially the Autonomous Province of Trento (; ; ), is an Autonomous province#Italy, autonomous province of Italy in the Northern Italy, country's far north. Trentino and South Tyrol constitute the Regions of Italy, region of Tren ...
's Cimbrian, a Germanic language
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
related to Bavarian, was spoken by at least 20,000 people in the 19th century, with 3,762 people in 1921 and fewer than 300 in 2007. The same scenario goes for Mòcheno and Walser.
;Sardinia
Unlike the neighbouring island of Corsica (France) and elsewhere in today's Italy, where Italian was the standard language shared by the various local elites since the late Middle Ages, Italian was first officially introduced to Sardinia, to the detriment of both Spanish and Sardinian (the only surviving Neo-Latin language from the Southern branch), only in 1760 and 1764 by the then-ruling House of Savoy
The House of Savoy (, ) is a royal house (formally a dynasty) of Franco-Italian origin that was established in 1003 in the historical region of Savoy, which was originally part of the Kingdom of Burgundy and now lies mostly within southeastern F ...
, from Piedmont
Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...
.[Bolognesi, Roberto; Heeringa, Wilbert. ''Sardegna fra tante lingue'', pp.25, 2005, Condaghes] Because of the promotion and enforcement of the Italian language and culture upon the Sardinian population since then, the majority of the locals switched over to such politically dominant language and no longer speak their native ones, which have seen steady decline in use. The language has been in fact severely compromised to the point that only 13% of the children are able to speak it, and today is mostly kept as a heritage language. With the exception of a few sparsely populated areas where Sardinian can still be heard for everyday purposes, the island's indigenous languages have by now been therefore largely replaced by Italian; the language contact
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...
ultimately resulted in the emergence of a specific variety of Italian, slightly divergent from the standard one.
Lithuania
Due to language shift, ethnographic borders of Lithuanian language
Lithuanian (, ) is an East Baltic languages, East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic languages, Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of t ...
from the Middle Ages to the late 1930s shrank sharply to the north and west from the territory what is now Grodno oblast in Belarus
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
, giving way to the spreading Polish and Belarusian language
Belarusian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language. It is one of the two Languages of Belarus, official languages in Belarus, the other being Russian language, Russian. It is also spoken in parts of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Polan ...
s, while in Prussian Lithuania out of 10 administrative units with prevailing Lithuanian language in the early 1800s, only the extreme northern part – Klaipėda region had still relative Lithuanian language majority in the 1910s with all the eastern and southern territories in some hundred or so years almost fully Germanized. These processes were happening both because of the perception of population as Lithuanian language was seen as of lower status by its peripheral speakers as well as deliberate policy by German and Russian imperial administrations, notably – a 40-year ban on Lithuanian language and press by the Tsarist government. In Lithuania Minor, where Lithuanian culture began to decline after The Great Plague between 1708 and 1711, Kristijonas Donelaitis' poem – The Seasons addressed this issue. In Northern Poland during the Middle Ages, the territory of Lithuanian language
Lithuanian (, ) is an East Baltic languages, East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic languages, Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of t ...
was reaching vicinities of Łomża
Łomża () is a city in north-eastern Poland, approximately to the north-east of Warsaw and west of Białystok. It is situated alongside the Narew river as part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the capital of Łomża County and has been the se ...
, Tykocin and Białystok
Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area.
Biał ...
, but shrank to the north – to the rural outskirts of Sejny, Punsk and Wiżajny before the 1900s as a consequence of acculturation
Acculturation refers to the psychological, social, and cultural transformation that takes place through direct contact between two cultures, wherein one or both engage in adapting to dominant cultural influences without compromising their essent ...
. The Polish-speaking island to the north of Kaunas
Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...
and south of Panevėžys
Panevėžys () is the fifth-largest List of cities in Lithuania, city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, eighth-most-populous city in the Baltic States. it occupies with 89,100 inhabitants. As defined by Eu ...
almost fully disappeared between the 1920s and the 1940s, as the local Lithuanian population, who increasingly began to speak Polish on a daily basis and at home during the 19th century (especially after the 1831 November Uprising
The November Uprising (1830–31) (), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution,
was an armed rebellion in Russian Partition, the heartland of Partitions of Poland, partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. ...
and the 1863 January Uprising
The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...
) gradually returned back to the Lithuanian language.
Malta
Before the 1930s, Italian was the only official language of Malta, although it was spoken only by the upper class, with Maltese being spoken by the lower class. Even though English has replaced Italian as a co-official language alongside Maltese, the Italian-speaking population has since grown, but the growth of English in the country now threatens the status of Maltese. A trend among the younger generations is to mix English and Italian vocabulary patterns, in making new Maltese words. For example, the Maltese word ''bibljoteka'' has been overtaken by ''librerija'', formed from ''library'' with an Italian ending. In addition to mixing English with Italian, Maltenglish involves the use of English words in Maltese sentences. Trends show that English is becoming the language of choice for more and more people, and is transforming the Maltese language.
Pakistan
Urdu, the lingua franca of South Asian Muslims
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
and the official and national language of Pakistan since its independence, is spoken by most educated Pakistanis. Despite positive attitudes towards Punjabi in the urban areas of Pakistani Punjab, there is a shift towards Urdu in almost all domains. Pashtuns
Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghan (ethnon ...
and other minorities in northern Pakistan use Urdu as a replacement for former native languages.
Paraguay
Guarani, an indigenous language of South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
belonging to the Tupi–Guarani family of the Tupian languages
The Tupi or Tupian language family comprises some 70 languages spoken in South America, of which the best known are Tupi proper and Guarani.
Homeland and ''urheimat''
Rodrigues (2007) considers the Proto-Tupian urheimat to be somewhere betwee ...
, and specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guarani (endonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
''avañe'ẽ'' ; 'the people's language'), is one of the official languages of Paraguay
Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...
(along with Spanish), where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and where half of the rural population is monolingual. Guarani is one of the most-widely spoken indigenous languages of the Americas
The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before the arrival of non-Indigenous peoples. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while many more are now e ...
and the only one whose speakers include a large proportion of non-indigenous people. This represents a unique anomaly in the Americas, where language shift towards European colonial languages has otherwise been a nearly universal cultural and identity marker of mestizo
( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturall ...
s (people of mixed Spanish and Amerindian ancestry), and also of culturally assimilated, upwardly mobile Amerindian people.
Paraguayan Guarani has been used throughout Paraguayan history as a symbol of nationalistic pride. Populist dictators such as José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia and Alfredo Stroessner
Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (; 3 November 1912 – 16 August 2006) was a Paraguayan politician, army general and Military dictatorship, military dictator who ruled as the 42nd president of Paraguay from 15 August 1954 until his overthrow in 19 ...
used the language to appeal to common Paraguayans, and upon the advent of Paraguayan democracy in 1992, Guarani was enshrined in the new constitution as a co-equal language along with Spanish. Jopara, the mixture of Spanish and Guarani, is spoken by an estimated 90% of the population of Paraguay. Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. These alternations are generally intended to ...
between the two languages takes place on a spectrum where more Spanish is used for official and business-related matters, whereas more Guarani is used in art and in everyday life.
Parthia
Instances of language shift appear to have occurred twice in the history of the Parthian Empire
The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power centered in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe ...
: once before its foundation, when the Parni invaded Parthia
Parthia ( ''Parθava''; ''Parθaw''; ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemeni ...
, eventually losing their Eastern Middle Iranian language and adopting Parthian instead; secondly, after the fall of the Parthian Empire, Parthian speakers shifted to Middle Persian
Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...
or Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...
.
Philippines
In the Philippines
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
, Spanish-speaking families have gradually switched over to Tagalog or English since the end of World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, so Spanish has ceased to be a practical everyday language in the country and is on the verge of extinction
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
.
Another example would be the gradual death of the Kinaray-a language of Panay as many native speakers especially in the province of Iloilo
Iloilo ( ; ), officially the Province of Iloilo (; ; ; ), is a province in the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. Its capital and largest city is Iloilo City, the regional center of Western Visayas and politically independen ...
are switching to Hiligaynon or mixing the two languages together. Kinaray-a was once spoken in the towns outside the vicinity of Iloílo City, while Hiligaynon was limited to only the eastern coasts and the city proper. However, due to media and other factors such as urbanization, many younger speakers have switched from Kinaray-a to Hiligaynon, especially in the towns of Cabatuan, Santa Barbara, Calinog, Miagao, Passi City, Guimbal, Tigbauan, Tubungan, etc. Many towns, especially Janiuay, Lambunao, and San Joaquin still have a sizeable Kinaray-a-speaking population, with the standard accent being similar to that spoken in the predominantly Karay-a province of Antique. Even in the province of Antique, "Hiligaynonization" is an issue to be confronted as the province, especially the capital town of San José de Buenavista, undergoes urbanisation. Many investors from Iloílo City bring with them Hiligaynon-speaking workers who are reluctant to learn the local language.
One of the problems of Kinaray-a is its written form, as its unique "schwa sound" is difficult to represent in orthography. As time goes by, Kinaray-a has disappeared in many areas it was once spoken especially in the island of Mindoro and only remnants of the past remain in such towns as Pinamalayan, Bansud, Gloria, Bongabong, Roxas, Mansalay, and Bulalacao in Oriental Mindoro and Sablayan, Calintaan, San Jose, and Magsaysay in Occidental Mindoro, as Tagalog has become the standard and dominantly recognised official language of these areas.
Palawan
Palawan (, ), officially the Province of Palawan (; ), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of . The capital and largest c ...
has 52 local languages and dialects. Due to this diversity, internal migration and mass media, Tagalog has effectively taken over as the lingua franca on the island. Same case what happened to Mindanao
Mindanao ( ) is the List of islands of the Philippines, second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and List of islands by population, seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the ...
, it has many native languages and dialects but due to internal migration which started during Spanish era until to this day from people of Visayas
The Visayas ( ), or the Visayan Islands (Bisayan languages, Visayan: ''Kabisay-an'', ; Filipino language, Filipino: ''Kabisayaan'' ), are one of the three Island groups of the Philippines, principal geographical divisions of the Philippines, a ...
and Visayan languages suddenly became the widely spoken languages in the island and some of the local languages are getting influenced and slowly losing its original form.
In Luzon
Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...
, the provinces of Camarines Norte
Camarines Norte (; ), officially the Province of Camarines Norte (; ), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Bicol Region in Luzon. Its capital is Daet, Camarines Norte, Daet, the most populous town in the ...
, Camarines Sur, and Pampanga have seen a shift to Tagalog. Similarly, younger generations in Davao City
Davao City, officially the City of Davao, is a City of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Davao Region, Philippines. The city has a total land area of , making it the List of Philippine cities and municipalities ...
are increasingly shifting from Cebuano to Tagalog as their primary language.
Romania
The localized version of Latin emerged from the interaction of indigenous people and the Roman state over a long stretch of time — including a long time after the Roman army withdrew from to the southern shore of the Danube in 271.
Russia
Since the rule of Catherine II
Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter III ...
, the Russian government has been making continuous efforts at Russification of its numerous subjects.
Nowadays, there is a persistent drop in percentage of speakers of languages other than Russian.
Singapore
After Singapore's independence
Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...
in 1965, there was a general language shift in the country's interracial lingua franca from Malay to English, which was chosen as the first language for the country. Among the Chinese community in Singapore, there was a language shift from the various dialects of Chinese to English and Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
. Until the 1980s, Singaporean Hokkien was the lingua franca of Chinese community in Singapore, which has since been replaced with English and Mandarin today. There has been a general language attrition in the use of Chinese other than Mandarin Chinese, especially amongst the younger segments of the Singaporean population.
Spain
The progressive dominion exerted by the Kingdom of Castile over Spain in as much as it gained political power throughout centuries, contributed to the expansion of its language at the expenses of the rest. The accession of the Castilian House of Trastamara to the Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon (, ) ;, ; ; . was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona (later Principality of Catalonia) and ended as a consequence of the War of the Sp ...
by the mid-15th century saw the gradual displacement of the royal languages of the Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon (, ) ;, ; ; . was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona (later Principality of Catalonia) and ended as a consequence of the War of the Sp ...
, Aragonese and Catalan, despite the prolific Valencian literature in Catalan in this period. Nebrija's ''Gramatica castellana'' (1492), sponsored by the new Spanish monarch Ferdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand II, also known as Ferdinand I, Ferdinand III, and Ferdinand V (10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), called Ferdinand the Catholic, was King of Aragon from 1479 until his death in 1516. As the husband and co-ruler of Queen Isabella I of ...
, was meant to help expand Castilian, "the companion of the Empire". As the Crown of Castile expanded, its different governmental officials at different levels required their subjects to use or understand Castilian and sideline other ''vulgar languages'', or vernaculars. It often meant the use of interpreters in lawsuits, which could tilt the outcome of the case, e.g. the Basque witch trials, and the increased use of Castilian in assemblies and decision-making bodies, and documents, despite not being the commonly understood language in a number of areas, like most of the Basque districts ( Navarre, Álava
Álava () or Araba (), officially Araba/Álava, is a Provinces of Spain, province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country, heir of the ancient Basque señoríos#Lords of Álava, Lordship ...
, etc.), Catalonia, Galicia, Asturias, parts of Aragon, etc.
As Aragonese retreated to the sub-Pyrenean valleys, Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
vanished by the early 17th century, when forced cultural assimilation of the Moriscos was coupled with expulsion (completed in 1614). The arrival of the Bourbons (1700) intensified the centralization of governmental structures and the imposition of Castilian as the only language for official purposes, replacing in 1716 Catalan as the language of Justice Administration in the relevant territories ( Nueva Planta Decrees). Unlike Catalan, Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
was never a language written on official documents, but was equally affected. It lost ground to Castilian in all its buffer geographic areas, as well as main institutions as a communication language, after a number of decrees and orders established Castilian as "the national language of the Empire" during Charles III
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms.
Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and ...
's reign; printing in languages other than Spanish was forbidden (1766), and Castilian was the only language taught in school (1768).
The Peninsular War
The Peninsular War (1808–1814) was fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Kingdom of Portugal, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French ...
was followed by the centralization of Spain (Constitutions of 1812, 1837, 1845, 1856, etc.), with only the Basque districts keeping a separate status until 1876. Compulsory education in 1856 made the use of Castilian (Spanish) mandatory, as well as discouraging and forbidding the use of other languages in some social and institutional settings. Franco and his nationalist dictatorship imposed Spanish as the only valid language for any formal social interaction (1937). By the early 21st century, Spanish was the overwhelmingly dominant language in Spain, with Basque, Catalan, and Galician surviving and developing in their respective regions with different levels of recognition since 1980. Other minorized languages ( Asturian, Aragonese) have also seen some recognition in the early 21st century. Catalan, sharing with Basque a strong link between language and identity (especially in Catalonia), enjoys a fairly sound status, however many Catalan speakers think that their language is still in danger, and this perception has brought about a number of campaigns to promote the use of Catalan, for instance '' Mantinc el català''. Basque competence has risen during the last decades, but daily use has not risen accordingly. The Endangered Languages Project has classified Asturian as being at risk and Aragonese as endangered.
Taiwan
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese may refer to:
* of or related to Taiwan
**Culture of Taiwan
**Geography of Taiwan
** Taiwanese cuisine
*Languages of Taiwan
** Formosan languages
** Taiwanese Hokkien, also known as the Taiwanese language
* Taiwanese people, residents of ...
used only Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...
before other ethnic groups conquered Taiwan. After widespread migration of Han peoples from the 17th to the 19th century, many Taiwanese Plains Aborigines became Sinicized, and shifted their language use to other Sinitic tongues, (mainly Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien ( , ), or simply Taiwanese, also known as Taigi ( zh, c=臺語, tl=Tâi-gí), Taiwanese Southern Min ( zh, c=臺灣閩南語, tl=Tâi-uân Bân-lâm-gí), Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively ...
). Additionally, some Hakka people
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...
(a Han Chinese ethnic subgroup) also shifted from Hakka Chinese to Hokkien (also called Hoklo). This happened especially in Yongjing, Changhua, Xiluo, Yunlin, etc. They are called ''Hoklo-Hakka'' ( Phak-fa-sṳ: ''Hok-ló-hak'', Peh-oē-jī: ''Hô-ló-kheh'', Hanzi: 福佬客).[ ]
When Taiwan was under Japanese rule, Japanese became the official language, with the Japanese government promoting Japanese language education. It also led to the creation of Yilan Creole Japanese, a mixture of Japanese, Atayal language, and Hokkien in Yilan County. In World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, under the Japanification Movement, Chinese was banned in newspapers and school lectures, and the usage of Japanese at home was encouraged, so many urban people turned to using Japanese. In 1941, 57% of Taiwanese could speak Japanese.
After the ROC government established rule over Taiwan in 1945, it forbade the use of Japanese in newspapers and schools, and promoted the Guoyu movement () to popularize Standard Mandarin
Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern Standard language, standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the Republic of ...
, often through coercive means. In the primary education system, people using local languages would be fined or forced to wear a dialect card. In the mass media, local languages were also discouraged or banned, and some books on the romanization
In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...
of local languages (e.g. Bibles, lyrics books, Peh-ōe-jī) were banned. In 1975, The Radio and Television Act () was adopted, restricting the usage of local languages on the radio or TV. In 1985, after the draft of the Language and Script Law () was released by the Ministry of Education, it received considerable opposition because it banned the use of Taiwanese unofficial languages in the public domain. In response, some Hakka groups demonstrated to save their language. After 1987 when martial law was lifted, the Guoyu movement ceased.
The shift towards monolingual Mandarin was more pronounced among Hakka-speaking communities, attributed to Hakka's low social prestige. Before the KMT took over the island from Japan, the Hakka were expected to learn both Hokkien and Japanese. However, the lack of a significant Japanese-speaking base for gaining and then retaining Japanese fluency meant that most Hakka learned only Hokkien. When the KMT fled to Taiwan from mainland China, most mainlanders settled mainly in northern Taiwan, close to Hakka-speaking areas, thus spurring a linguistic shift from Hokkien to Mandarin within the Taipei area. As the bulk of economic activity centered around patronage networks revolving around Mandarin-speaking KMT membership, most of the Hakka became Mandarin monolinguals, due to a shift in social mobility formerly centered around Hokkien. Elsewhere, although the Hokkien speech-community shrank within the population, most Hokkien-speaking households have retained fluency in Hokkien, helped by the liberalization of Taiwanese politics and the end of martial law.
Nevertheless, Taiwanese Mandarin
Taiwanese Mandarin, frequently referred to as ''Guoyu'' () or ''Huayu'' (), is the variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese ...
has become the most common language in Taiwan today, and the most common home language of Taiwanese youth. In the population census of 2010, Mandarin is the most common home language in the Taipei metropolitan area, Taoyuan, Matsu, aboriginal areas, some Hakka-majority areas, as well as some urban areas of Taichung
Taichung (, Wade–Giles: '), officially Taichung City, is a special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality in central Taiwan. Taichung is Taiwan's second-largest city, with more than 2.85 million residents, making it the largest city in Ce ...
and Kaohsiung
Kaohsiung, officially Kaohsiung City, is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Kaohsiung City has a population of approximately 2.73 million p ...
. Conversely, the ability of Taiwanese to speak ethnic languages is strikingly on the decline.
Turkey
Studies have suggested an elite cultural dominance-driven linguistic replacement model to explain the adoption of Turkish by Anatolian indigenous inhabitants.
During the presidency of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ( 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and revolutionary statesman who was the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President of Turkey, president from 1923 until Death an ...
, policy of turkification was heavily promoting thus leading to languages of Muhacirs disappearing.
United Kingdom
The island of Great Britain, located on the western fringes of Northwestern Europe, has experienced a series of successive language changes and developments in the course of several invasions. Celtic languages
The Celtic languages ( ) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, descended from the hypothetical Proto-Celtic language. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, following Paul-Yve ...
predominated before the arrival of the Romans in 43 CE imposed a Latinate
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion o ...
superstructure. Anglo-Saxon dialects then swamped much of the Romano-British speech from the 5th century, only to be challenged from the 9th century by the influx of Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
dialects in much of England and in parts of Scotland. Following the Norman invasion of the 11th century, Norman-French became the prestige tongue, with Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...
re-asserting the Germanic linguistic heritage gradually in the course of the later Middle Ages.
;Cornwall
;Scottish Gaelic
Gaelic has long suffered from its lack of use in educational and administrative contexts, and was long suppressed by Scottish and then British authorities. The shift from Gaelic to Scots and Scottish English
Scottish English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard English may be defined ...
has been ongoing since about 1200 CE; Gaelic has gone from being the dominant language in almost all areas of present-day Scotland to an endangered language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...
spoken by only about 1% of the population.
With the advent of Scottish devolution, however, Scottish Gaelic has begun to receive greater attention, and it achieved official recognition when the Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament ( ; ) is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood, Edinburgh, Holyrood area of Edinburgh, and is frequently referred to by the metonym 'Holyrood'. ...
enacted the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act on 21 April 2005. Gaelic-medium education in Scotland now enrolls more than 2000 students a year. Nevertheless, Scottish Gaelic is a minority language in most of the traditional Gàidhealtachd.
;London
Predictions envisage the replacement of Cockney English (traditionally spoken by working-class London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
ers) by Multicultural London English (MLE) or "Jafaican" by about 2040 as Cockney
Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by Londoners with working-class and lower middle class roots. The term ''Cockney'' is also used as a demonym for a person from the East End, ...
s move out of London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. Researchers theorise that the new language emerged as new migrants spoke their own forms of English such as Nigerian
Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was derived from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jo ...
and Pakistani
Pakistanis (, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As much as ...
English, and that it contains elements from "learners' varieties" as migrants learn English as a second language.
; Wales
United States
Although English has been the majority language in the United States since independence in 1776, hundreds of aboriginal languages were spoken before western European settlement. French was once the main language in Louisiana, Missouri, and areas along the border with Quebec
Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
, but the speaking has dwindled after new waves of migration and the rise of English as a lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
. Californio
Californios (singular Californio) are Californians of Spaniards, Spanish descent, especially those descended from settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish language in C ...
Spanish became a minority language during the California Gold Rush
The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...
; it has largely been overtaken by English and Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish () is the variety of dialects and sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in Mexico and its bordering regions. Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, more than double any other country in the world. Spanish is spo ...
, surviving mainly as a prestige dialect in Northern and Central California. German was once the main language in large areas of the Great Plains
The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...
and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
, but it was suppressed by anti-German sentiment
Anti-German sentiment (also known as anti-Germanism, Germanophobia or Teutophobia) is fear or dislike of Germany, its Germans, people, and its Culture of Germany, culture. Its opposite is Germanophile, Germanophilia.
Anti-German sentiment main ...
during the First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. But contemporary English is widely used in the United States, and so many years of development have created the growth of English in the region.
Vietnam
Since the fall of Saigon
The fall of Saigon, known in Vietnam as Reunification Day (), was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by North Vietnam on 30 April 1975. As part of the 1975 spring offensive, this decisive event led to the collapse of the So ...
at the end of the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
in 1975, French has declined heavily in Vietnam from being a government language and primary language of education in South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered Diplomatic recognition, international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the ...
to being a minority language limited to the elite classes and elderly population. Today, French is spoken fluently by less than 1% of the Vietnamese population. The language shift from French to Vietnamese occurred earlier in the north due to Viet Minh
The Việt Minh (, ) is the common and abbreviated name of the League for Independence of Vietnam ( or , ; ), which was a Communist Party of Vietnam, communist-led national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1 ...
and later communist policies enforcing Vietnamese as the language of politics and education. However, since the late 1990s, there has been a minor revival of French in Vietnam.
Reversing
American linguist Joshua Fishman
Joshua Fishman (Yiddish: שיקל פֿישמאַן — Shikl Fishman; July 18, 1926 – March 1, 2015) was an American linguist who specialized in the sociology of language, language planning, bilingual education, and language and ethnicity. ...
has proposed a method of reversing language shift which involves assessing the degree to which a particular language is disrupted in order to determine the most appropriate method of revitalising.
See also
* Germanic substrate hypothesis
The Germanic substrate hypothesis attempts to explain the purportedly distinctive nature of the Germanic languages within the context of the Indo-European languages. Based on the elements of Common Germanic vocabulary and syntax which do not seem ...
* Linguistic imperialism
* Second language
A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language.
A speaker's dominant language, which ...
* Stratum (linguistics)
* Transitional bilingualism
* World Englishes
Notes
References
Sources
*
* Bastardas-Boada, Albert (2007)
"Linguistic sustainability for a multilingual humanity"
''Glossa. An Interdisciplinary Journal'' (on-line), vol. 2, n. 2.
* Bastardas-Boada, Albert (2002)
''Diverscité langues'', vol. VII, Analyses et réflexions (on-line)
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*Bastardas-Boada, Albert. ''From language shift to language revitalization and sustainability. A complexity approach to linguistic ecology''. Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2019.
External links
SIL Bibliography: Language shift - Ethnologue.com
The Rate of Assimilation : Francophone Minorities: Assimilation and Community Vitality - Department of Canadian Heritage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Language Shift
Concepts in language policy, shift
Sociolinguistics
Historical linguistics, Shift
Endangered languages, Shift
Cultural assimilation
Articles containing video clips