Dr. Jayan Vasudevan,
Software Training and Development Centre, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Thiruvananthapuram, India
The cross lingual influence on the low resource language will have a negative impact when the native speakers of the low resource language are forced to become bilingual. Especially with tribal languages that do not have scripts. The influence of the major language will result in the acquisition of new lexicons in the low resource language by language attrition. Basically, the tribal languages across the world are on the verge of extinction due to such alienation. The caste system in India is also a major factor in the alienation of the low resource language. People from the tribal community may try to hide their identity and immerse themselves in the new culture by speaking the non-native language. With the major language in their academic curriculum, the parents are also hesitant to converse in the mother tongue, so they start to speak the major language with their new-born children. This will result in the death of the language for oral communication. Sometimes children find it difficult to switch from their native language (L1) in which they have to carry out their further studies. That will result in alienation as well as school dropout. Mavilan is one of the dominant tribal communities in Kerala state, India. The island’s population is estimated to be around 35000 people. The native language is Markodi and there is no script for the language. This study is focusing on the influence of the Malayalam language and the language attrition that is resulting in its extinction.
Keywords: Markodi, Tulu, Crosslingual Influence, Low Resource Language
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Eighth International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature (WWW.LLLD.IR), 14-15 February 2023, Ahwaz.
