Abstract

This article presents a synchronic account of the language use patterns and attitudes of selected 16- to 25-year-old Mauritius secondary school and university students in five domains: (1) home, (2) neighborhood, (3) emotion, (4) social media, and (5) education. Analysis of the data obtained from one hundred and twenty-five male and female participants using a sociolinguistic questionnaire indicates that the ancestral language is indeed in rapid decline not just in the home but in all the domains explored in this study. The main motivation for this shift away from Bhojpuri, one of the major ancestral languages spoken in Mauritius, as the results appear to show, is the increasing positive attitudes toward the Mauritius Creole and its utilitarian role in society as the unambiguous language of urbanity and national identity. While the results confirm previous findings for English and French as indicators of prestige, educational attainment, and socioeconomic upward mobility, they also have implications for the future of Bhojpuri and language policy in Mauritius.