ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the terms used to label phenomena associated with language attrition. It deals with instances of change and highly visible changes in vocabulary, phonology and morphosyntax. Monika S. Schmid argues that ‘language attrition’ is an advanced stage of the influence of second language on first language and distinguishes language attrition in degree, and perhaps also in kind, from ‘incomplete acquisition’. Thus, for understanding historical change, understanding the practices of both kinds of speaker is essential: those who acquired the new ways of talking as adults (and are undergoing language attrition), and those who acquired both the old way and the new way of talking as children. Thus, language attrition is an extreme case of rapid shift within a language as speakers move to speaking another language. A common end-state of language attrition is disappearance of the old language as people shift to speaking another language.
