Language Maintenance and Language Shift among Kabyle Speakers in Arabic Speaking Communities The Case of Oran

Abstract

The present study investigates the Kabyle minority group living in Oran. This group was chosen because it makes use of a variety which is totally unintelligible with the other components that consist Oran speech repertoire, and because it outnumbers the other minority groups. Within this work we intend to study the speech behavior of this minority group in relation to a variety of social variables. The question is to know whether, as a minority group, Kabyle speakers of Oran will maintain their mother tongue or shift to other languages that exist in Oran. Knowing that language attitudes play an important role in language choice, this study aims at investigating the different attitudes this group would display towards the four languages that consist their speech and towards code switching. To achieve the above goals, we started by shedding some light on the sociolinguistic situation of Algeria in terms of diglossia, bilingualism, code switching and borrowing, and then we tried to relate our data to linguistic models such as the one developed by Myers Scotton. Similarly to previous investigations on Berber studies in Oran, Benhattab (2004, 2011) and Benali Mohamed (2007), we opted for a questionnaire made up of three sections that deals with different aspects of language attitudes and behaviours. This was distributed to a selected population to obtain a representative sample. The findings of this work come out with the conclusion that the Kabyle speakers of Oran under study manifest positive attitudes towards their native language. These positive attitudes may play a significant role in the maintenance of the Kabyle variety.We may also say that members of this minority speech group express their belonging and loyalty to the Kabyle language and culture through the use of their minority language in different contexts.