ABSTRACT
In his book Language, Society and Identity (1985: 3) John Edwards says that the concept of identity is characterized by “a multitude of markers … of which language is but one.” The other markers he cites are religion, age, sex, social class and geography. Wardhaugh (1987: 43) also says that language is one of several dimensions, including race and religion, which define the identity of an ethnic group. According to Fishman (1991), an ethnic group is a collectivity separated from others by boundaries consisting of one or more of the following symbolic elements: kinship patterns, language or dialect, tribal loyalty, religious affiliation, or a combination of two or more of these.
