24 Jamaican Creole Proverbs from the Perspective of Contact Linguistics The classification compiled by Krauss (1992, 1997, 1998, 2001, in Tsunoda 2005: 10) encompasses three types of language conditions but does not take into account one more group, i.e. groups of languages which have no speakers and therefore are considered to be dead. Joshua A. Fishman (1991: 87–109; in Tsunoda: 2005: 10), however, offers a classification connected with the functions of language. It consists of eight stages. Terms used in the typology are “Xish” for the name of any language, “Xmen” for members of that community and “Ymen” for members of some other community. The classification takes into account areas where the language usage takes place. Stage 1: some use of Xish in higher level education, occupational, governmental and media efforts (but without additional safety provided by political independence). Stage 2: Xish in lower governmental services and the mass media but not in the higher spheres of either. Stage 3: use of Xish in lower work spheres (outside of the Xish neighborhood/community) involving interaction between Xmen and Ymen. Stage 4: Xish in lower education that meets the requirement of compulsory education laws. Stage 5: Xish literacy at home, school and the community, but without taking on extra-communal reinforcement of such literacy. Stage 6: the attainment of intergenerational informal oralcy and its demographic and institutional reinforcement. Stage 7: most users of Xish are a socially integrated and ethnolinguistically active population but are beyond child-bearing age. Stage 8: most vestigial speakers of Xish are socially isolated old folk and Xish needs to be re-assembled from their utterances and memories and taught to demographically unconcentrated adults. In order to make the whole classification complete, Tsunoda (2005: 11) proposes one more stage, i.e. the ninth stage in which no speakers remain. The areas of language use determine its vitality – it seems that the wider the field of language usage is (schools, offices, government, home, etc.), the less its position is threatened by relatively quick extinction. The classification presented above is based on the function of language in a society. The classification by Dixon (1991: 237; in Tsunoda 2005: 11), on the other hand, takes five stages of language loss into account, including not only the function but also the number of speakers and their age. The representative group of languages upon which the typology was created are the Australian Aboriginal
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