LANGUAGE SHIFT

  Language Shift is expected a sign of successful assimilation. A language shift occurs when the people in a particular culture or sub-culture change the primary language that they use for communication. This can happen in two primary ways: by indigenous languages been replaced with regional or global languages or by the language of immigrant populations being replaced with the dominant language of the host country. When there are no more native speakers of a language, it is considered dead or extinct.
The most common way for a language shift to happen is through formal education in a more dominant language. For example, I am from Bandung, west java. I used to speak Sundanese. One day, I continued my study in Yogyakarta, central java. Most of my friends are Javanese, so, they speak Javanese to some people they meet. Because of that, I speak Javanese too. It means that my language is shift language. I speak Sundanese in Bandung and speak Javanese in Yogyakarta. The first language might continue to be used at home for a period of time, but gradually Javanese may replace the indigenous language for education. Over a few generations, the first language may fall out of use even in private settings, resulting in a language shift.
Language death is when all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with them. With the spread of a majority group language into more and more domains, the number of contexts in which individuals use the ethnic language diminishes. The language usually retreats till it is used only in the home, and finally it is restricted to such personal activities as counting, praying and dreaming. For example, my mom is a Javanese. She married with my dad who is Sundanese. After getting married, they lived in Jakarta. Most people in Jakarta speak Bahasa Indonesia. Then both my mom and dad also use Bahasa Indonesia as their daily language to communicate with neighbors. They seldom use their first language. Finally, long time ago they forgot how to speak their first language. It means that, both my mom and my dad loss their own language. It is called language death.