Language shift

Language shift is the gradual replacement of a community’s customary language by another language. It occurs as speakers and institutions increasingly use the newer language across generations and social settings.

Intergenerational language transmission: The passing of a language from one generation to the next through everyday interaction and caregiving. When families stop passing on the customary language, shift can accelerate across generations.
Irish language revival: Efforts to restore Irish use after a long decline under English dominance. It illustrates organized attempts to reverse a long-running shift.
Linguistic imperialism: The dominance of a language imposed or reinforced through political, economic, or cultural power. Unequal power can make the dominant language necessary for education and advancement.
Language revitalization: Efforts to increase the use, learning, and intergenerational transmission of a threatened language. Revitalization responds to shift by rebuilding domains and transmission.
Code-switching: The alternation between languages or varieties within a conversation or communicative event. Alternating languages within interaction does not itself mean one is replacing the other.
Diglossia: A stable distribution of two language varieties across different social functions within a community. Unequal use across formal and familiar settings can precede a broader shift.
Manx language: A Goidelic Celtic language of the Isle of Man, revived after its traditional native-speaker community disappeared. Its decline and revival distinguish language loss from permanent extinction.
Colonialism: A system in which a state controls and exploits another territory and its population. Colonial rule often reorganized institutions around the colonizer’s language.
Language attrition: The weakening or loss of linguistic ability in an individual or community through reduced use. As a language recedes from daily life, speakers may lose fluency and vocabulary.
Language contact: The interaction of speakers of different languages, often producing linguistic and social change. Contact is the broader setting; it can occur without community-wide replacement.

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