22 Jamaican Creole Proverbs from the Perspective of Contact Linguistics weld a nation together” (Moseley 2007: xii). Moreover, as Moseley further states, a method that is often used to suppress indigenous languages and to make sure they are not passed on is by excluding them from the educational system, the press or religious life.8 Another possible mechanism leading to language loss is what Thomason calls g r a mm a t i c a l r e p l a c e m e n t , where “[…] the original grammar of one language is gradually replaced by the grammar of another […]” (Thomason 2001: 232, quoted in Chruszczewski 2006: 61). The difference between attrition and grammatical replacement is that “the language that has undergone grammatical replacement retains more domains of usage, including use with small children, than the language that has undergone attrition […]” (ibidem). It seems that the aspects of structural changes in languages which encompass the field of grammar are mainly caused by outside factors and are connected with global expansion triggered by a developing economy. 2.2.1. Mechanisms of language loss Languages, and especially minority languages, have always been threatened by the possibility of being eradicated by major languages. There are certain similarities in circumstances surrounding endangered languages. They have been observed to: (1) have similar social settings and to usually be surrounded by a dominant dialect or language; (2) have their usage gradually decrease, ending in language decline; (3) have recurrent structural patterns in the endangered languages which undergo a similar process to pidginization (for a detailed analysis, see Tsunoda 2005: Ch. 8); (4) have a fourth type of endangered languages which are the so-called “enclave languages” i.e. those which have their homeland but are also spoken outside the country on other territories. An example is Norwegian, which used to be spoken by Norwegian immigrants in the US, however, it can now be considered extinct in the US although it is obviously still spoken in its homeland, i.e. in Norway (Tsunoda 2005: 5–6). Krauss (1998: 5; in Tsunoda 2005: 3) speculates that ten thousand years ago the number of languages reached its highest point and since then there has been a decline. Tsunoda (2005: 3) considers colonization by European nations as the most devastating cause of language loss. Thus, he suggests that the history of language loss should be divided into two periods: the pre-European colonial period and the post-European colonial period. 8 For the entire discussion, see Moseley (2007: xii–xiii).
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