When Dolly Pentreath died in December 1777, the last native speaker of Cornish passed away. Comishwas formerly spoken by thousands ofpeopie in Cornwall, but the community of Cornish speakers did not succeed in maintaining irs language under the pressure of English, the prestigious majority language and national language. Ta put it differently: rhe Cornish community shifted from Comish to English (cf. Pool, 1982). Such a process seems to be going on in many bilingual communities. More and more speakers use [he majcrity language in domains where they formerly spoke [he minoriry tongue. They adopt rhe majority language as their regular vehicle of communication, often mainly beceuse they expect that speaking that ianguage gives better chances for upward seclal mobility and economie success. As Dress1er and Wodak-Leodo1ter (1977:35) point out in an artiele on Ianguage preservation and death in Brittany (France): ‘it is necessary to present oneself as a member of rhe nauonal majority to acquire positions (like jobs, official functions and educational facilities﹜'. In such cases the minority Ianguage is in danger ofhecoming obsolescent.

When a community stops speaking a minorhy language, of course this Ianguage win not always he extinguished. For example, if the Gujerati-speaking peop1e in England shifted to English cornplerely, Guierati wou1d not become a dead language. There are millions of speakers of Gujerati in other parts of rhe world, especially in India. For the (erstwhile) Gujerati community in England ir would he a dead language.

Sometimes it seems that ‘shift’ can he equated with ‘shift towards the majority or prestigious Ianguage', hut in fact ‘shift’ is a neutral concept, and also shift towards the extended use of the minority Ianguage can be observed For examp1e, in rhe last decades French has strengthened its position in Quebec at the expense of English. After a period of shift towards the majority language, there is often a tendency to reverse the process, because some people come to realize that rhe minority language is disappearing, and they try to promote its use. These defenders of the minority language are often young, active members of cultural and politica1 organizations thar stand up for the social, economie and cultural interests ofthe minority group.