Assessing the Factors of Language Shift

A Study on the Rakhain Community in Kuakata and Cox’s Bazar

Abstract

Language shift is a common phenomenon in bilingual and multilingual communities. Bangladesh is a country with different ethnolinguistic communities. There are 45 or more indigenous groups forming linguistic minorities in Bangladesh, and they are ethno-linguistically different from the majority Bengali community. The Rakhain community is one of the minority communities in Bangladesh experiencing a language shift situation. The study was designed to assess the influence of demographic, socio-economic, and educational factors on the Rakhine language shift into Bengali in the context of Kuakata and Cox’s Bazar. The study’s objectives were to identify demographic, socio-economic, and educational factors of Rakhain language shift and assess the extent of influence of these factors on Rakhain language shift. A structured survey questionnaire was used to collect primary data from 120 respondents of the Rakhain community in Kuakata and Cox’s Bazar. A stratified random sampling technique was used to collect the data. The data generated from the questionnaire survey were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. The study's findings indicated a significant influence of demographic, socio-economic, and educational factors on the Rakhine language shift