"Language attrition is the process of losing a native or first language."
Reviews the factors that affect the retention or loss of a person's multilingual abilities over time.
Language acquisition: The process of learning a language.
Linguistic diversity: The range of different languages spoken and used in different regions.
Language contact: The interaction between different languages in a multilingual environment.
Language shift: The process by which a community's language use shifts from one language to another.
Language revitalization: The efforts to promote and maintain a language that is at risk of dying out.
Language policy: The set of rules and regulations that govern language use in a community or society.
Language planning: The process of making decisions about a community's language policy.
Language attrition: The loss of a language due to disuse or lack of practice.
Heritage language maintenance: The efforts to maintain a language that is part of a person's cultural heritage.
Code-switching: The practice of alternating between two or more languages in a conversation or communication.
Multilingualism in education: The use of multiple languages in the classroom or educational system.
Language ideologies: The beliefs and attitudes that people hold about languages and their use.
Language dominance: The relative power and influence that a language has in a particular context or community.
Language identity: The ways in which language use and language attitudes shape a person's sense of self and group belonging.
Language contact phenomena: The effects of language contact on the structure and usage of a language.
Language shift: The gradual replacement of one language by another in the speech community.
Language maintenance: The ability to retain and continue using a language despite pressure to shift to another language.
Language loss: The process of decline in the use of a language, including its capacity to be learned, understood, and used effectively.
Language attrition: The loss of a language or decline of proficiency in the language due to lack of use.
Language revitalization: The process of restoring a language to active use and reversing language shift.
Bilingualism: The ability to use two languages proficiently.
Multilingualism: The ability to use more than two languages proficiently.
Diglossia: The use of two different varieties of the same language, one for formal situations and the other for informal situations.
Code-switching: The ability to alternate between languages or language varieties in a single discourse.
Language planning: The process of deliberate efforts to preserve, promote, or standardize a language or language variety.
"This process is generally caused by both isolation from speakers of the first language ('L1') and the acquisition and use of a second language ('L2')."
"The acquisition and use of a second language interferes with the correct production and comprehension of the first language ('L1')."
"Speakers for whom a language other than their first has started to play an important, if not dominant, role in everyday life are more likely to experience language attrition."
"It is common among immigrants that travel to countries where languages foreign to them are used."
"Frequent exposure and use of a particular language is often assumed adequate to maintain the native language system intact."
"A positive attitude towards the potentially attriting language or its speech community and motivation to retain the language are other factors which may reduce attrition."
"These factors [positive attitude and motivation to retain the language] are too difficult to confirm by research."
"A person's age can well predict the likelihood of attrition; children are demonstrably more likely to lose their first language than adults."
"Language attrition results in a decrease of language proficiency."
"The current consensus is that language attrition manifests itself first and most noticeably in speakers' vocabulary."
"Grammatical and especially phonological representations appear more stable among speakers who emigrated after puberty."
"These factors [affecting language attrition] are similar to those that affect second-language acquisition."
"The overall impact of these factors is far less than that for second language acquisition."
"Isolation from speakers of the first language ('L1') contributes to language attrition."
"The acquisition and use of a second language interferes with the correct production and comprehension of the first language."
"It is common among immigrants that travel to countries where languages foreign to them are used."
"Frequent exposure and use of a particular language is often assumed adequate to maintain the native language system intact. However, research has often failed to confirm this prediction."
"A positive attitude towards the potentially attriting language or its speech community... may reduce attrition."
"A person's age can well predict the likelihood of attrition; children are demonstrably more likely to lose their first language than adults."