17.193, Disc: Re: Disc: Prestige & Language Maintenance

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-17-193. Fri Jan 20 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.193, Disc: Re:  Disc:  Prestige & Language Maintenance

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1)
Date: 19-Jan-2006
From: Nino Bourdjanadze < nbourdjanadze at yahoo.com >
Subject: Re: 17.100,  Disc:  Prestige & Language Maintenance 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:32:13
From: Nino Bourdjanadze < nbourdjanadze at yahoo.com >
Subject: Re: 17.100,  Disc:  Prestige & Language Maintenance 
 

I think socio-economic factors such as access to formal education are to be
taken into account too. The reason why the individuals with lowest social
status in a particular social community keep the indigenous language of
their group might be related to the fact that they are socio-economically
too far from the formal education in/of the dominant language. This lack of
access also reduces the chances of the ideology of the dominant linguistic
group being imposed on the dominated linguistic group. 

In fact, in some minority language communities in Europe language
replacement has not occurred at large (ie. diglossia existed but the
situation was more or less stable) until education was made compulsory for
all society, including individuals from the lowest social layer (who might
account for the majority of that community). Also, it seems that those who
most readily start using the dominant language usually belong to the
middle, not the lowest, classes. 


Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     Sociolinguistics





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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-193