Mugaddam: Language Maintenance and shift : the case of Khartoum and Dilling (Nuba Mountains).

This paper investigates the process of language maintenance and language shift among ethnic minority groups living in Dilling city, the Nuba Mountains, and Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan. A 22-item questionnaire was used to collect data on language proficiency, language use, and language attitude. The results show that a considerable number of younger-generation migrants have adopted Arabic as their primary language. Arabic was also used predominantly in most domains of communication. Although many respondents showed a positive attitude to their ethnic languages, they actually did not make any efforts to maintain them. The analysis suggests that language shift to Arabic in Dilling is more pronounced than that in Khartoum. The main reason behind this difference is that a significant portion of the sample population in Khartoum belongs to the Southern groups who proved to be bigger in size, more homogeneous, and highly proud of their ethnic and cultural identity. Another possible reason is that while ethnic individuals from the same groups tend to live together in certain areas in Khartoum, those in Dilling live in scattered areas around the city.