Asian Research Thesis Index

Abstract

Political and sociocultural factors in language loss: A study of language shift in North Pakistan When a language dies, a whole history often dies with it. The phenomenon is worthy of the closest study possible. There is always a feeling of regret with the passing of languages, yet the processes of change must also be recognized and understood. There is a complex web of political, social, economic and cultural factors responsible for the phenomenon. North Pakistan is a land of geographic and ethnic diversity, one of the most multilingual places on earth. This study is designed to investigate the political and sociological causes of language loss in general. It is a study of language shift in North Pakistan. For this study three dying languages of Northern Pakistan were selected, Palula spoken in Kalcutuk, Yadgha spoken in Lutkoh valley and Domaki spoken in Mominabad, Hunza. Information was collected through observations, interviews, questionnaires, wordlists and texts for transcription. Data collected through these tools were then statistically analyzed and discussed. It was found out that the political and sociocultural causes for language loss were not the same for all the languages; they varied from language to language. Therefore it was concluded that the causes of language loss fall into both general and specific categories. General causes of language loss are usually the same for all languages, irrespective of geographic boundaries and linguistic variables, but specific causes of language loss are different for different languages according to their social, geographic and linguistic features.

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