Examining the Role of Change in Endangered Languages with Some Reference to Arbëresh and Arvanitika

Abstract

In this work I examine the main scholarly positions on language change in the case of endangered languages; dividing them into two principal groups: the group of positions that considers the changes to be abnormal signs of linguistic attrition, and the group that sees that them as normal changes that develop as strategies to maintain the language. I draw examples from discussions, chiefly of the last 20 years, and from personal observation and other data from Arbëresh and Arvanitika, two endangered languages with which I have worked for a few decades now. Rather than being opposing absolute positions on the state of endangered languages and how changes affect them, the two groupings represent evolving views that demonstrate the state of frustration among researchers trying to come up with new, working paradigms that, in some cases, try to appear more avant-garde than previous ones. This study maintains the position that, while endangered languages have shown that they can resist better than predicted in the 1990s, there is need for linguists to exercise more caution in their theoretical deliberations constructed to assist the communities of speakers.

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