جلد
شمارہ
مقالے کی قسم
زبان


تلخیص
Languages are the main pillars of the society. Within the Sindh province, many indigenous languages are spoken, however within the urban domain i.e. Karachi, the majority languages (English and Urdu) are institutionalized and less exposure is given to the minority languages. With the advent of foreign language (Chinese) in the educational sector, maintaining the mother tongue is really a challenging task. As a result, the native mother tongue speakers are learning and acquiring the dominant languages to fit in the society and serve various purposes. The present study explores the language choice patterns, reasons of language choice and status of language shift and maintenance from the mother tongue to the other tongue in various domains. So far the studies have been conducted in urban domain on minority language groups belonging to the northern areas of Pakistan and mainly after a shift have been noted by the community leaders. The case of Dhatki language is unique, as the language has not been studied before and therefore a qualitative case study have been conducted to know about the language phenomena of the native speakers residing in the urban domain, as they are the actual stakeholders. The research site selected for this study was one of the Public Sector Universities of Karachi and the target population is native Dhatki language speakers. The initial data for the study was gathered using sociolinguistic profile from 30 undergraduate Dhatki-speaking urban youth using purposive sampling; finding the native speakers was not a problem as many of them are enrolled in the university. However for comprehensive data, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted from 06 participants using purposive and snowball sampling, to gather accurate results, the data was transcribed for thematic analysis. The present study provides an insight of such a situation where indigenous speakers are exposed to multiple languages in different domains and are acquiring majority language for academic and social needs, while adopting minority language at the same time due to close affiliation and frequent language contact. Hence the speakers are losing the essence in their native mother tongue. The findings provide an interesting data for language policy makers and mother tongue speakers who can shape future action about mother tongue using this comprehensive data. However, a large scale study can be conducted to know more about the Dhatki language for language documentation.

Muhammad Hassan Abbasi , Mariam Aftab. (2019) 7Mother Tongue or the Other Tongue? The Case of Dhatki-Speaking Urban Youth, Balochistan Journal of Linguistics, Volume 7, Issue 1.
  • Views 702
  • Downloads 132