The Southern Kurdish (Kermashani Dialect) Status Use in Kermanshah: Language Maintenance or Shift?

Document Type : Original Article

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1 Ph.D. Graduated in Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Allamah Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran

2 . Corresponding author, Professor, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Allamah Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Language change among multilingual societies is considered as an important issue. Native speakers of indigenous languages are willing to acquire prestigious languages. The tendency in bi/multilingual context in Kermanshah to use Persian can threaten the survival of the Southern Kurdish (Kermashani dialect). This study is about to examines whether speakers are maintaining or shifting their native language. The hypothesis is that Kurdish usage has declined in various domains specially among the youth as they are increasingly shifting to persian. To find out, 384 Participants in 3 groups: under 20, 20-50 and over 50 were selected by simple random sampling to fill up the questionnair. The data were collected from different domains by Domain Analysis Theory of Fishman (1966) and were analyzed by SPSS software. The findings maintained that in family domain Kurdish usage is less than in office and Marketplaces domains and the extent of Kurdish learning as the first language has declined. On the other hand, the acquisition of Persian as the first language in the youngest group has unexpectedly raised more than 10 times compared to the other 2 older groups. The findings signify an accelerating language shift in Kermanshah.

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