Electronic Theses and Dissertation

Keywords: language loss, language shift, language domain, acehnese, adjectives, attitude ethnologue’s (2019) information shows that currently acehnese has a total of 3.5 million speakers. this number may fluctuate, probably decrease, due to the ongoing language change. this study was aimed at finding out the acehnese words, especially adjectives, which have the potential to become lost. the present study was also aimed at finding out the reason some of those words may be lost. this is a sociolinguistic study employing questionnaires, wordlist interview, and focus group interview (fgi). fifty acehnese adjectives extracted from swadesh list, were tested to 10 younger speakers (age 13-14), who were selected out of 120 questionnaire respondents. the selection criteria being considered included their age, origin, and parents’ origin. the respondents were students of year 7 and 8 of mtsn rukoh, banda aceh. the findings of this study show that 50% of the number of tested words was only known to 50% of the participants interviewed. while the other half of the participants show varied knowledge and understanding of the tested adjectives. the questionnaire responses showed that the participants rather negative attitude to the language and decreasing domain of the language use. seventy percent of the participants use acehnese at home, but indonesian at school. meanwhile the other 30% use indonesian both at home and at school despite their knowledge of acehnese. these findings indicate that although the status the tested words looks safe, the information on rather negative attitude and the decreasing language use domain suggest the potential loss of the acehnese adjectives, especially among younger speakers.