DefinePK

Abstract

A large scale mass migration to and from Pakistan occurred as a result of division of the
Subcontinent into two Independent dominions, Pakistan and India. Saraiki speakers who migrated from Pakistan became a linguistic minority on arrival in India. The current study analyzes the speech of 61 such migrants and 57 of their progeny who were born in Delhi after the migration. Half of the participants of both groups were female. The current study identifies the role of markedness, gender, attitude, incomplete acquisition and frequency of use in language attrition. The participants were asked to produce words carrying breathy voiced sonorants [m" n 1 n nh], plan alveo-palatal nasal [n], fricatives [z x y] and implosives [6fdg) of Saraiki. The recordings were evaluated by 3 native speakers of Saraiki of the area from where the participants' families had migrated. The findings show that those participants who were more affiliated to Hindi were losing their L1 (Saraiki) consonants faster than those who were less affiliated to it. Those migrants who were young at the time of migration, were faster in losing Saraiki phonemes than those who were adults at the time of migration. The role of phonetic factors was evident in that the participants were losing coronal implosives more rapidly than labial implosives. It is because labial implosives are perceptually more prominent than coronal ones. The participants were not losing retroflex nasal because it is not only used frequently in Saraiki but it also frequently occurs in Hindi. The participants were more accurate in producing coronal fricatives compared to producing velar fricatives. This shows the role of markedness in language loss. The female participants were found to be less accurate in Saraiki consonants than male participants. However, frequency of speaking the L1 (Saraiki) does not seem to have any correlation with language attrition/maintenance.