Close and Dense Networks: Do They Lead to Maintenance of the Ethnic Language? Focus on the Telegu Community in Kuching, Sarawak

Abstract

This paper sets out to examine the issue of language shift among the closely-knit minority Telegu community in Sarawak. According to L. Milroy (1987) a closely-knit social network system is a significant device of language maintenance and can be applied universally. However, local researches on Malaysian Indians such as M. K. David’s (1996) study on the Sindhi community, S. Govindasamy and M. Nambiar’s (2003) study on the Malayalees, and M. K. David and F. Noor’s (1999) study of the Portuguese community in Malacca show that although these minorities have close and dense networks, yet they are moving away from their ethnic languages. This paper investigates whether or not the closely-knit minority Telegu community in Kuching, Sarawak, has also shifted to other languages. Data from conversations in the home domain will determine the dominant language used by members of the community. The attitude of the community towards the use of the heritage language will also be discussed. The information will emerge from unstructured interviews with members of the community. It is found that close and dense networks do not necessarily result in language maintenance