“Why I Don'T speak like mom and dad”: Language identity, maintenance and shift of IP students

The study is descriptive of the status oflanguage identity, language maintenance and language shift of Indigenous Peoples students of Philippine Normal University-North Luzon by considering their language attitude, the probable causes of language shiftand language lossas variables to the inquiry. The investigation centered on describing how IP students of the institution perceive the situation of their mother tongue and other influential languages in the context of the language used and spoken by their parents as well as their environment. Language maintenance and shift was hypothesized to be connected to the IP family background of the respondents. Hence, the study identified the respondents as born of parents who are both IPs and an IP parent intermarried to a non-IP. The results reveal that IPstudents born of parents who are both IP are morelikely to lose their home languages because their linguistic foundation is merely composed of both languages of minority compared to those whose parents are intermarried. This group is less likely to lose home languages since only one language is threatened (inferior language) while the other (superior language) is maintained since the same language is spoken by the majority group. The study desires to increase awareness of minority groups, IPs in this context, of the status of their language for possible language identity preservation and avoidance of possible language loss.