Language Maintenance and Language Shift among Second Generation Tigrinya-speaking Eritrean Immigrants in Saudi Arabia
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| Title | Language Maintenance and Language Shift among Second Generation Tigrinya-speaking Eritrean Immigrants in Saudi Arabia |
| Authors | |
| Abstract | This paper addresses the language maintenance and language shift among the young Tigrinya-speaking Eritrean immigrants in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Sixty-four Tigrinya-speaking teenager immigrants in Riyadh participated in this study. Forty of them are females and twenty-four are males. These respondents are students enrolled in the Eritrean International School in Riyadh. The results reveal that respondents have a limited ability to understand, speak, read, write, and translate orally Tigrinya into Arabic and vice-versa. In comparing the level of their proficiency in both Tigrinya and Arabic, it is found that they have a lower proficiency in Tigrinya than in Arabic. The use of Tigrinya is seemingly decreasing and the use of Arabic is increasing. Therefore, there is evidence from this study that second-generation Tigrinya teenagers’ proficiency is shifting toward Arabic rather than maintaining the native language. |
| Publisher | ACADEMY PUBLISHER |
| Date | 2012-05-01 |
| Source | Theory and Practice in Language Studies Vol 2, No 5 (2012) |
| Rights | Copyright © ACADEMY PUBLISHER - All Rights Reserved.To request permission, please check out URL: http://www.academypublisher.com/copyrightpermission.html. |