The cultural pressures would change indigenous cultural practices in a way that would result in the loss of kinship and mother-in-law vocabulary

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
NAME
INSITUTION
Introduction
According to Dixon (1989), secondary or specialized vocabulary systems such as in-law taboo language, religious language, and ceremonial language among others are vulnerable particularly when there are linguistic or cultural pressures. In this paper, I analyze how this phenomenon is likely to occur by drawing from the studies conducted by Dixon, as well as literatures learnt in class.
To begin with, Dixon (1990) studied the origin of mother in-law vocabulary in two Australian languages. In addition, Dixon (1989) studied the unique kinship system of the Dyirbal- speaking people of North Queensland Australia. In the mother in-law vocabulary study, Dixon (1990) contends that each dialect of the contiguous Australian languages Yidiny and Dyirbal had a special avoidance vocabulary, which must be used in the presence of class of relatives particularly mother in-laws. So, Dixon (1990) sought to investigate the origin of the mother in-law vocabulary. Dixon argues that some lexemes have been borrowed not only from the everyday language style, but also from the avoidance style of neighboring dialects, while others have been engineered by the application of creative grammatical processes within the given dialect. In addition, another set has been created from terms in the corresponding everyday style in that dialect by phonological deformation.
In this sense, Dixon (1990) posits that the current mother-in law vocabulary of the Australian languages Yidiny and Dyirbal languages is likely to be lost following its interaction with other neighboring languages or dialects. This means that when two languages or dialects come into contact, they are likely to merge under linguistic or cultural pressures (Cartford, 1977). In the long run, either of the dialects shrinks. This leads to the deformation of either language.
In the 1989 study, Dixon studied the unique kinship system of the Dyirbal- speaking people of North Queensland Australia. He noted that speaking people of North Queensland Australia have a unique kinship system. Married in this group is quite unique; it takes place with someone not from ego’s own generation, but a generation below or above. For instance, a cross cousin via an older sibling link from the generation of both parents has the potential to become a mother or father-in-law. In addition, ego is allowed to marry the child of such a relation. On top of that, ego can marry the child of a younger opposite sex of a grandparent (from the mother’s side).
Critical analysis
Edwin Sapir was the first to study the power of language on culture and thinking (Otto, 2013). He postulated that people’s world view or thinking is shaped by their language. There are however many cultural language differences. Wh...