Language Shift and Social Status
Languages perceived to be "higher status" stabilise or spread at the expense of other languages perceived by their own speakers to be "lower-status".
Historical examples are the early Welsh and Lutheran bible translations, leading to the liturgical languages Welsh and High German thriving today, unlike other Celtic or German variants.
For prehistory, Forster and Renfrew (2011) argue that in some cases there is a correlation of language change with intrusive male Y chromosomes but not with female mtDNA. They then speculate that technological innovation (transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture, or from stone to metal tools) or military prowess (as in the abduction of British women by Vikings to Iceland) causes immigration of at least some males, and perceived status change. Then, in mixed-language marriages with these males, prehistoric women would often have chosen to transmit the "higher-status" spouse's language to their children, yielding the language/Y-chromosome correlation seen today.
Read more about this topic: Language Change
Famous quotes containing the words language, shift, social and/or status:
“If fancy then
Unequal fails beneath the pleasing task,
Ah, what shall language do?”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)
“The frantic search of five-year-olds for friends can thus be seen to forecast the beginnings of a basic shift in the parent-child relationship, a shift which will occur gradually over many long years, and in which a child needs not only the support of child allies engaged in the same struggle but also the understanding of his parents.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
—A.J. (Arthur James)