Language shift among the Armenians of Jordan

• Autores: Mahmoud A. Al-Khatib
• Localización: International journal of the sociology of language, ISSN 0165-2516, Nº. 152, 2001, págs. 153-177
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper examines the language situation among Armenians in Jordan, a small minority group inhabiting the country for the last 100 years. The Armenians of Jordan are assumed to be experiencing a kind of shift in their speech. The main aim of this study is to gauge the shift and to highlight the sociodemographic factors enhancing it. The data were collected with the help of a number of Armenian assistants, by means of questionnaires and interviews. The results of the study show that Arabic is used mainly in most social domains. However, the Armenian language is found to be used in very restricted situations and by a very small number of people, particularly the elderly. The paper proves that the Armenians of Jordan are experiencing a gradual shift toward Arabic that may lead on their part to language loss.

    By calibrating the ®ndings of this study against those of Dweik's (2000) work on the Jordanian-Chechens, another minority group inhabiting the country for 100 years too, it has been shown that the Chechens are much more faithful to their language than the Armenians. The distinction between them is accounted for in terms of the size of each group, demographic concentration, and types of occupation held by each of them, among other sociopsychological factors.