The effects of colonialism on language change

Abstract

One of the most serious political factors that can lead to language change is colonialism. Its aim is to expand the political and economic power of the conqueror over the conquered country. For instance, the major goal of European Colonialism and Imperialism was to expand the economic and political authority of European nations and assert their superiority.

 Socio-political cataclysms are accompanying processes of the colonial regime, the influence of which is quite sensitively experienced by any language.  The history of world languages ​​​​is familiar with all the possible consequences that can arise if the regime is established, from simple lexical borrowings to the death of the language or the birth of new languages.

Mufwene, in his assessment of the language cross caused by colonialism, claims that the ecology of each such case is somewhat unique. Despite the similarities between them, what happens in one language environment is not necessarily repeated in the other. (Mufwene, 2002: 6).