11 - Language attrition and death

Summary

In this chapter I will raise the issue of whether in language attrition processes functional elements in particular are affected, and if more so than lexical elements. In a survey of the domain under discussion, Sasse (2001b: 1671) writes: ‘In attrited languages, function words are often omitted (e.g. copula, Ferguson 1971) or replaced by equivalents from the dominant language (Arvanitika speakers tend to replace almost all conjunctions and many prepositions with their Greek equivalents).’ I will begin by illustrating some relevant dimensions of attrition, the sociolinguistic scenarios responsible for its occurrence, and the various hypotheses about the way it is supposed to have occurred. Then I will isolate one particular linguistic topic as the focus of my discussion, case endings, to see how attrition has affected case in different contexts: Gaelic in Scotland, Dyirbal in north-eastern Australia, Hungarian in the United States, German in Jewish émigré communities in London, and Low German in western Siberia. In my conclusion I return to a slightly more general perspective.

The study of attrition

The process of language attrition is a complex one, since the term is used to refer to several different things. First of all, individuals who have left their original speech communities may forget their original language to some extent, depending on how old they were when they left, how much they kept using their language, and how long ago they left.