Discover Top Posts Tagged with #language attrition

By Kandala Singh

#all that angrezi #hinglish #language #language attrition #poetry

It’s possible to forget your first language, even as an adult. But how, and why, this happens is complex and counter-intuitive.

Schmid is a leading researcher of language attrition, a growing field of research that looks at what makes us lose our mother tongue. In children, the phenomenon is somewhat easier to explain since their brains are generally more flexible and adaptable. Until the age of about 12, a person’s language skills are relatively vulnerable to change. Studies on international adoptees have found that even nine-year-olds can almost completely forget their first language when they are removed from their country of birth.

But in adults, the first language is unlikely to disappear entirely except in extreme circumstances.

For example, Schmid analysed the German of elderly German-Jewish wartime refugees in the UK and the US. The main factor that influenced their language skills wasn’t how long they had been abroad or how old they were when they left. It was how much trauma they had experienced as victims of Nazi persecution. Those who left Germany in the early days of the regime, before the worst atrocities, tended to speak better German – despite having been abroad the longest. Those who left later, after the 1938 pogrom known as Reichskristallnacht, tended to speak German with difficulty or not at all.

#language #language learning #language attrition #linguistics #language. power. narrative.

Gaelic took two centuries to establish itself in Scotland became the language of the people only after replacing another. During the 12th century, there was inc

#linguistics #Linguistics student #contact linguistics #languages in contact #university #college #college essays #linguistics electives #linguistics essay #languages of the world #langblr #lingblr #studyblr #language attrition #scottish #scottish gaelic #eastern sutherland #eastern sutherland dialect

Language attrition

First of all, let’s explain the title:

Language attrition (or reduction) is the process whereby a person loses their mother tongue out of lack of use.

This doesn’t mean that they completely forget the language, but that beacuse of moving to another country, or not using it (sometimes languages are banned, but I’ll leave this for another day), they have lost their competence and therefore the language they feel more comfortable using is probably their “second language”.

#language attrition #i learned this in phonetics class and I thought it would be interesting to share

I've never actually experienced re-activating a second language after falling out of disuse until now. It took about a week of "Oh right. Yep." and "Holy crap my vocab is gone." to "YEAH! LET'S TEST OUT OF ALL THE SKILLS ON DUOLINGO! I REMEMBER!" Language attrition is real. But Spanish is coming back to me now.

#second language #language attrition #language learning #duolingo #it is coming back #yaaaaaayyyyy

“It sucks when my grandmother speaks Hindi to my dad and I have no idea what they are saying.”

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“As I grew up, I sort of didn’t want to learn quite as much since it didn’t really apply to the world outside of my house.”

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“I refused to speak it because everyone around me was not Korean.”

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“I wish I could speak Tagalog to my grandparents. There’s this language barrier and it keeps them understanding [sic] how I’m growing up here in America and it keeps me from understanding how their lives unfolded in the Philippines.”

#language #language attrition #asia #asian languages #native language #mother tongue #culture #bicultural #language. power. narrative.

tl;dr writing and language attrition, wanting to write as a Spanish speaker that's internalized English-language cultural references

I have an issue where there are a ton of words that I've been exposed to in other languages and like over its Spanish equivalents.

This is a problem when I want to write. English words are the biggest. I've read and heard so much English for the last 10 years or so, in direct detriment to my Spanish language use and consumption. And I like it. And there are so many words. So many that I just won't find in the Spanish vocab trove, too.

I like twilight more than crepúsculo. Crepúsculo sounds awful.

I like fox more than zorro. Deer more than venado or ciervo. Blushing more than sonrojarse.

Warmth more than calor or tibieza or whatever else. They aren't even that similar. Warmth has something much more cozy and soft about it (to me). Calor is too strong and intense, and tibieza has a slightly negative connotation. Each have their place and distinct connotations, but when I mean warmth, calor and tibieza just won't do.

There are many, many examples.

It's not just liking either. Even if I ignore those words that I particularly like, many are just more familiar to my ear now. It's also about cultural references - base intuitive indexicality. That's huge, actually.

Getting back to reading in Spanish has helped a lot in regards to getting accustomed again to the rhythm of the language. But I haven't experienced the same with words. I'll write in Spanish and want the next phrase or sentence to be in English because there's just something about the feel of it and what I want to say.

#writing #linguistics #language attrition #books #booklr #english language #spanish language #sociolinguistics #psycholinguistics #writingblr #writers on tumblr #poetry #language learning

I can't access my French brain....wtf.... My brain used to be able to code switch and turn on authentic French words, expressions and remember a number of experiences when exposed to native French speakers.

#language attrition #me #text post