First-language attrition

Tue Oct 26 16:57:41 UTC 2004

Hi!

Maybe there's a world continuum. Some areas of the world are more friendly to minority languages, others are less friendly. I'd have to agree with you, that Brazil is not typical. I'd say it's about the most hostile country I've ever seen with regard to minority languages.

I think there probably various reasons why this is the case. One of them is that Brazilians are less prejudice, and more inclusive than most people. It is not difficult for an immigrant or for an indigenous person to be welcomed into mainstream Brazilian society. It is harder for someone to be thought of as "real" American, Canadian, or probably Kongo. So you don't have very strong external forces preventing integration.

Another reason is the strength of Portuguese, which is spoken by probably 98% of the population.

The fact that the large majority of Brazilians live in cities is also problematic for minority languages. Portuguese is the strongest in cities, and the speakers of minority languages who immigrate to the urban areas face very strong forces of assimmilation.

I'm stepping out on a limb here, but maybe the countries which are least hostile to minority languages are the African countries. The countries on the other end of the continuum might be Congo or Ethiopia.

If this were the case, there are probably several reasons. Maybe the strong identification with their tribal groups has something to do with it. In Brazil, people feel strongly Brazilian, and Portuguese is a part of that. Maybe in Congo, people feel strongly that they are members of a certain tribe; and don't feel that strong of a Congolese identity.

Another reason is that there is no super language, spoken by 98% of the population. So the rival languages in Congo, for instance, aren't nearly as strong as Portuguese is in Brazil.

The fact the Africa is primarily rural would also help preserve the languages. In their tribal areas, the minority languages don't face as much competition as they would in the city.

If this continuum exists, I wonder what countries would be in the middle?

Stan Anonby

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 15:11:27 -0700 (PDT)
 Aurolyn Luykx <aurolynluykx at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Too many comments to respond to today!
> Re Stan's comparisons of Africa and Brazil, it's worth
> remembering that Africa has many times the population
> of Brazil! And certainly Africa is not uniformly "a
> rural place" -- while much of the population is rural,
> the continent boasts many cities of millions of
> people.  The interesting thing about many African
> countries is that they have SEVERAL languages of wider
> communication, rather than just one clearly dominant
> one. So, you certainly don't need to be a child of
> "cross-tribal marriage" to grow up multilingual in
> Africa.
> While the majority of Brazilians probably do live in
> cities, my impression is NOT that it's a "huge
> majority." More importantly, in Brazil, only 1-2% of
> the population are indigenous language speakers
> (leaving aside for the moment that Brazil is also home
> to the largest Japanese speech community outside of
> Japan). Certainly Brazil represents a lg. ecology that
> is more hostile to minority languages than most --
> where I differ with Stan is on his (apparent)
> impression that Brazil is typical. I see it as
> decidedly atypical.
> Aurolyn
>
> > >From what little I understand of Africa, it seems
> > like a rural place. The percentage of people living
> > in cities is low compared to the rest of the world.
> > I'm sure there are some cross tribal marriages
> > occuring in cities, and some of the children of
> > these cross tribal marriages likely grow up speaking
> > only the L2 of the city. However, since Africa is so
> > multilingual, this is probably still rare.
> >
> > In most of the world, the language ecology is very
> > different. In Brazil, for instance, the huge
> > majority of people live in cities and speak only
> > Portuguese. When indigenous people who speak their
> > own language move to the city, their children almost
> > always lose their L1. Could say the language ecology
> > is much more hostile in Brazil?
> >
> > Stan Anonby
> >
> > On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 17:13:21 -0400
> >  David Balosa <balosa at lasalle.edu> wrote:
> > > Dear 
> >
> Hamo:                   
> > When Does L2 Endanger
> > L1?      My answer to your
> > concern is based on my personal experience.First, I
> > believe that L2 endangers L1 in a situation where L2
> > is of a high prestige language and that L1 is
> > of a low prestige one. Second, L2 endangers L1 in a
> > situation of personal attitude and identity
> > choice.Bilingual or multilingual people like myself
> > will endanger our L1 not because of how much a
> > given L2 is sold to us, but because of our choice of
> > the language we want to identify ouselves with and
> > the social class that each of these languages
> > can offer.    I actually speak
> > various languages ( Portuguese, French, English,
> > Spanish, Lingala, Kiswahili, Kikongo ---). I started
> > learning French when I was 12 years old. At that
> > age, I spoke Portuguese, as my L1 at home with
> > my parents and spoke F!
> >  rench as
> > > my L2 at school and when playing with peers.
> > Besides Portuguese and French was  Lingala, a
> >  lingua franca and a language of wide
> > communication in the DR Congo.To make the language
> > business more complicated for me at that
> > younger age, my parents spoke their
> > "indigenous" L1, Kikongo at home and with their
> > peers. Kikongo languagesneighboringis one of Angolan
> > national languages. Many of its dialects are also
> > used as national languages in the neighboring
> > countries such as Congo Kinshasa and Congo
> > Brazzaville.    
> >     How did I keep my Portuguese in
> > spite of a substantial French and Lingala
> > invasion? My parents did draw a line, which i call
> > "parent's voice", saying "Portuguese at home because
> > we will go back to Angola one day, OK!"I was
> > receptive to their message, but said to myself
> > 'French is more beautiful than Portuguese and French
> > people are more developed than Portuguese people.' I
> > decided to learn and de!
> >  velop both
> > > French and Portuguese because of social demands,
> > my parent and my personal attitude.The rest of the
> > languages came along little by little because of
> > their consistent exposure. instruction was not
> > needed or supplied. With what outcome?Today I
> > still speak Portuguese with a native intuition,
> > French with a native like intuition, English, my
> > everyday,  professional and
> > research language for 12 years now, as my
> > L2.  As you can see,  my English
> > performance has not invaded my L1a, L1b, and L1c ...
> > because i have drawn a line between these languages
> > and have given them specific role in my cognitive
> > universe. ImplicationI believe that the only
> > way we can help language learners not to let L2
> > endangers L1 is to address each language role and
> > personal attitude toward these languages.Our
> > memories are very dependent. It belongs to us as
> > languages users to direct it. David Balosa
> >
> >
>
>
>
> 		
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