LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE / SHIFT AND SPEAKERS’ ATTITUDES IN TURKEY: THE CASE OF MACEDONIAN IN MUSTAFAPAŞA, CAPPADOCIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46763/Keywords:
Macedonian; Mustafapaşa Village; Language Attitude; Language Choice; Language Maintenance.Abstract
This study examines the language attitudes and choices of the Macedonian-speaking Muslim community of Mustafapaşa, Cappadocia, nearly a century after their forced resettlement during the 1923 Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey. The community, descendants of approximately 400 immigrants from Jerveni (Agios Antonios) near Kastoria, Greece, has since integrated into Turkish society while retaining symbolic ties to their heritage language. Although the community expresses strong affective attachment to Macedonian, this attitude does not consistently translate into active maintenance. Drawing on Fishman’s (1964) framework of language maintenance and shift, findings indicate that Turkish, reinforced through education, socioeconomic prestige, and intermarriage, has become the dominant language across generations. Macedonian persists mainly among older speakers and in receptive multilingual exchanges, but younger generations acquire only fragments, often framed as nostalgic “words from grandmothers.” Within international frameworks, the community is situated between “threatened” and “shifting” on the EGIDS scale (Lewis & Simons, 2010) and between “vulnerable” and “definitely endangered” in UNESCO’s (2011) classification. The case demonstrates that positive attitudes toward a heritage language alone are insufficient to ensure intergenerational transmission. Unless Macedonian is repositioned as a second language with educational support, it risks survival only as cultural memory, rather than as a living medium of communication.
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