MEASURING THE RATE OF LANGUAGE LOSS: A STUDY ON TAMIL IDIOMS

When a language is passed from one generation to another, many linguistic components undergo changes in different degrees. These changes include addition of new elements (eg, neologisms), modifications, and loss of some elements (eg, obsoleteness). This study focuses on language loss in the pragmatic level by analyzing Tamil idioms and how well two subsequent generations comprehend them, arriving at a rate of loss between two generations of the study population. In addition, this study model can be used as a method to measure the rate of language loss through generations and to ascertain the rate of LL in a given language, especially in case of languages that are nearing the threat of endangerment.