An important factor in language maintenance is whether language is regarded as a core cultural value, i.e., whether the group sees their language and its maintenance as a key aspect of the group’s identity.[1]
In 1976, O’Bryan et al. investigated the attitudes displayed by various ethnic groups towards the retention of their ancestral language in Canada. Among German ethnics, just as with the members of other ethnic groups, there was considerable support for the retention of German as a non-official language. Almost 22% of the sample thought it was “very desirable” to retain German as a non-official language, another 44% felt that it was “somewhat desirable”; 25% were indifferent, and only 9% felt that it was “somewhat” or “very” undesirable for German to retain its place in Canada. [2] The extent to which the retention of German was considered to be “very desirable” varied little across Canada, ranging from 25% to 17%. [3]
Generational differences were found to have a significant impact on the extent to which the maintenance of the German language was considered desirable. Of the first-generation ethnic Germans, 26% viewed retention of German as “very desirable” (compared with 35% for the total sample of ethnic groups); about 11% of the second generation thought it was “very” desirable for German to retain its place in Canada; a surprising 23% of the third generation rediscovered an interest in retaining German and thought it was “very desirable” for German to be kept alive in Canada. The second generation was the most indifferent towards language retention (39% of the German sample): in the first generation only 18% and in the third generation 26% were indifferent towards retaining German. [4] Of those who were indifferent or opposed to the retention of German as an ancestral language in Canada, slightly over half gave “prevents mixing” as the most important reason, with other reasons making up the remainder. [5]
The respondents’ level of education interacted in an interesting manner with their attitudes towards the retention of German in Canada. While 29% of those persons who had eight or fewer years of education thought it “very desirable” to retain German, only 21% of respondents with between nine and twelve years of education, and 18% of people with thirteen or more years of education thought it was “very desirable” to keep German alive. [6]
The professed desire to “keep German alive” is not matched by reality, however, as we have seen. In her study of German language maintenance in Vancouver, Gumpp determined that of the ca. 30,000 ethnic Germans who had settled in the Greater Vancouver area between 1945 and 1970, more than half (59%) had taken to speaking English in their homes. Only some 18% of the Canadian-born Germans grew up with German as their mother tongue, and of those only 22% spoke German in the home. She concluded that – with the exception of a small group in Vancouver South – Germans chose to assimilate as quickly as possible, even when they paid lip service to the preservation of the ethnic tongue and other ethnic features. [7]
4.1 Language use and self-perceived fluency in German
O’Bryan et al. sought to determine generational differences in language use in five metropolitan areas (Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Vancouver) – that is, differences in the extent to which immigrants of various ethnic groups still used German in Canada, compared to members of the second and third generations. For all ethnic groups studied, 71% of first-generation immigrants perceived themselves to be “fluent” in their mother tongue. The percentage of Germans claiming fluency was slightly higher: among German ethnics, 78% of the first generation considered themselves “fluent.” This compares with under 5% of the second generation, and virtually none of the third generation. In the second generation, the number of German-Canadians speaking their mother tongue with “some degree of fluency” amounted to just over 65%, compared to some 64% of the total sample. A substantial number of ethnics of the third generation still reported “some knowledge” of the ancestral language, namely 39% of the total sample and 27% of the Germans. [8]
There was quite a range in the proportion of those who thought that they were “fluent” in German; Edmonton was lowest with 26% of the Germans considering themselves “fluent” in German, Winnipeg 38%, Vancouver 42%, Montreal 52%, and Toronto 66%. This was attributed by O’Bryan et al. to the fact that Toronto and Montreal are immigrant cities and are, therefore, regularly supplied with recent immigrants speaking an ancestral language. Moreover, it may be that the opportunities to hear and read the ancestral language (radio, television, newspapers) are greater in these two cities than in the others.[9]
36% of the German ethnic group said that they used German “every day,” 10% used it “often,” 16% “occasionally,” 10% “rarely or never,” and 28% reported insufficient conversational knowledge. Similar patterns of language use were also reported by the Dutch (32% used the language “every day”) and Ukrainian (35%), while 83% of the Chinese group and Greek and Portuguese (89%) said that they made use of their language “every day”. The Scandinavians were by far the lowest in everyday use of their mother tongue: only eight percent reported using it every day, six percent “often,” 14% “occasionally,” 11% “rarely or never,” and 60% maintained that they had insufficient conversational knowledge.
The fact that the ancestral language is no longer used by the third generation has also been confirmed by Reitz who also found the lowest level of ethnic community participation and language maintenance in the third generation, [10] and a similar decrease in language use by the third generation was noted by Isajiw. [11] First-generation German immigrants used their ethnic language “frequently” (44%), but none of the third generation did so.
Among those ethnics who speak the non-official language fluently, 81% reported that they used it “every day,” but only 65% of the speakers of German did so. [12] Correspondingly larger percentages of fluent German speakers used German either more “often,” “only occasionally,” or “rarely or never” than was true for the entire sample. Similarly, among those speakers who only know “some” German, 11% reported daily use compared to 39% for the total sample. [13] It can be concluded that both fluent and non-fluent speakers of German in Canada used the non-official language less frequently on a day-to-day basis than did the “typical” ethnic Canadian.
The previously mentioned study by the Canadian Department of Manpower and Immigration reported on the immigrants’ readiness to acquire English as their home language. Among immigrants from the Federal Republic of Germany, an astounding 32% reported speaking English at home after six months; this percentage rose only slightly to 34% after two years. The corresponding percentages for immigrants from Italy were 13% and 24%, respectively, and for immigrants from Portugal, 12% and 18%, after one and two years, respectively. [14] When immigrants were asked about the perceived quality of their English, immigrants from the Federal Republic of Germany gave the highest percentages of “good” or “perfect” knowledge of English of all non-English or non-French-speaking immigrants: After six months, 52% of the German immigrants indicated “good” or “perfect” knowledge (compared with 21% for immigrants from Greece, 12% from Italy, and 5% from Portugal). After two years of residence in Canada, 71% of immigrants from West Germany claimed “good” or “perfect” knowledge of English, and after three years, 83% said that they spoke “good” or “perfect” English. After three years, the corresponding rates for immigrants from Greece were 54%, from Italy 36%, and from Portugal, 23%. [15]
4.2 Language use in the social context
The place of a non-official language can perhaps best be understood by knowledge of the partners with whom it is used. O’Bryan et al. selected the following partner groups: family, close friends, clergy, grocer, doctor, classmates or co-workers (see Table 12). As expected, German was used most frequently with members of one’s own family. Of those who spoke German fluently, 97% spoke “some” German with family members, about 55% with close friends, almost 28% with their clergy, and only about 15% with their grocer, doctor, classmates or co-workers. When the definition is narrowed to “exclusive use of German” with the above target groups, the percentages are greatly reduced: in that case, only about a quarter of those who had reported using German with the various types of members of their social group did so “exclusively” in German. Here it is of interest that the use of German with the clergy ranked just as high as did use of German with close friends. Clearly, German is used mainly as the language of communication within the immediate circle of family members and friends, but not as extensively with less intimately known persons; members of the clergy occupied a middle position on the intimacy scale. It is of some interest that German was used much less frequently with all other partners, only about half as much, than were other ancestral languages in all social contexts except the family. [16]
Table 12 Use of German in social interaction by fluent speakers [17]
4.3 Discussion
When asked, German-Canadians have claimed a strong desire to keep the German language alive in Canada, but this view is not matched by the facts. They began using English in the home quickly (sometimes required when the spouse could not speak German, of course) and claimed to speak English well or even perfectly after only a few years. Yet, people who, by their pronunciation and intonation, were obviously of German descent, could frequently be heard talking to each other not in their mother tongue, but in heavily accented, broken, unidiomatic English. When asked, some would deplore the fact that they had almost forgotten their mother tongue, but had not yet fully learned the English language. |
[1] David Bradley, “Language attitudes: The key factor in language maintenance,” in David Bradley and Maya Bradley, eds., Language endangerment and language maintenance (New York: Routledge Courzon, 2002), p. 1.
[2] O’Bryan et al., p. 75.
[3] O’Bryan et al., p. 88.
[4] O’Bryan et al., pp. 95-96.
[5] O’Bryan et al., p. 88.
[6] O’Bryan et al., pp. 106-107.
[7] Ruth Gumpp, “Language loss and language retention among German post-war immigrants in Vancouver, 1945-1971,” in Hartmut Froeschle (ed.), German-Canadian Yearbook, Vol. XIV (Toronto: Historical Society of Mecklenburg Upper Canada, 1995), pp. 75-88.
[8] O’Bryan et al., pp. 46-48.
[9] O’Bryan et al., p. 49.
[10] Jeffrey G. Reitz, “Language and ethnic community survival,” in Raymond Breton, ed., Aspects of Canadian Society (Canadian Sociological Association, 1974), p. 111.
[11] Quoted in Leo Driedger and Peter Hengstenberg, “Non-official multilingualism: Factors affecting language competence, use and maintenance.” Paper presented at the eighth biennial conference of the Canadian Ehnic Studies Association, Montreal, October 1985.
[12] O’Bryan et al., p. 55.
[13] O’Bryan et al., p. 56.
[14] Canadian Immigration and Population Study: Three years in Canada, p. 99.
[15] Canadian Immigration and Population Study: Three years in Canada, p. 104.
[16] O’Bryan et al., pp. 61-66.
[17] Adapted from Tables 4.25 and 4.26 in O’Bryan et al. |
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