'Status' drives extinction of languages

[Christina Paulston]

The Jews shifted to Aramaic which was the lingua franca of its time  
( even if we really don't know why) so it can happen.  We can ask  
Nancy but I seem to recall that many smaller groups in the Andes  
shifted to Quechua and a policy of mitimai contributed to that.   
Somehow I don't think the French will shift English no matter how  
global. Christina
On Feb 14, 2008, at 4:13 PM, Don Osborn wrote:

> A couple of quick responses
>
> Anthea Fraser Gupta wrote:
>> ... Not all bilingualism is associated with split populations. ...
>
> This was one of my thoughts. Isn't there a lot of evidence of  
> bilingualism
> where preference is also involved? Or even a kind of counter-status?  
> What of
> the value to individual speakers of being able to express themselves  
> with
> different languages?
>
> Although it may not be relevant, were both the writers monolingual?
>
> Dennis Baron wrote:
>> ... perhaps we should just make English the official world language  
>> and be
> done with it). ...
>
> I actually have a draft question along these lines for posting on  
> another
> forum (not that I advocate it, but the idea is to promote discussion).
>
> The question I have in relation to this, is whether a global lingua  
> franca
> (English or another, but official and recognized as such by all or  
> almost
> all countries) would serve to drive everyone to monolingualism in that
> global second language, or to the contrary serve as another factor  
> to change
> the dynamics of language shift.
>
> Don Osborn
>