Linguistic and Cultural Shifts of the Aranadan Tribe in Kerala

Abstract

Language and cultural shifts are the major causes of endangerment of any community, which begins from minor switching of practices and verbal repertoires and ends with a whole change of community, and finally culminates in the community losing its own identity.  Language shift usually takes place in a bilingual or multilingual speech community. It is a social phenomenon, whereby one language replaces another in a given society due to underlying changes in the composition and aspirations of the society. This process transitions from speaking the old to the new language. This is not fully a structural change caused by the dynamics of the old language as a system. The new language is adopted as a result of contact with another language community. The term language shift excludes language change which can be seen as an evolution, and hence the transition from older to newer forms of the same language. Contact between two or more cultures often leads to different sociological processes such as acculturation, cultural change, cultural genocide, and cultural shift. Cultural shift occurs when a community gives up its own socio-cultural practices like customs, rituals and traditional beliefs, and is characterized by changes in cultural symbols, rules of behavior, social organizations, or value systems. It differs from the process of cultural change in which a community’s culture can evolve independently. Shifts may take place at the level of an individual speaker who gradually forgets or shifts to another language and consequently this language spreads to an entire community. This phenomenon can be seen among the Aranadans, a primitive tribal community found mainly in the Malappuram district and in other Northern districts such as Kasargode and Kannur of Kerala, owing to their irreverence towards the preservation of their own language and culture. The socio-ecological, psychological and educational factors impact their language and cultural shifts. This paper illustrates and clarifies the reasons for the language and cultural shifts of the Aranadan tribal community.