Language Loyalty Among The Yemenites Of Lackawanna -New York

This paper describes the Yemenite community with the purpose of identifying social, psychological, historical, religious and linguistic processes that may affect the maintenance of their mother - tongue (Arabic) when it is under the influence of the majority language (English). Fishman's research, over three decades, has laid the theoretical background for this investigation. 50 members from the Yemenite community were interviewed in the summer of 1994, and data were collected on language proficiency, patterns of use in different contexts, and attitudes to their languages. Results are presented and factors that enhance language loyalty whether social or linguistic are identified.