The analysis shows the following ranking order of the visibility: Chinese, English and Malay in Chinatown and English, Malay and Tamil in Little India. On basis of the above characteristics of the signs, the visibility of the different languages in the linguistic landscape was analysed. For each of the signs in the database, it is determined whether it is a monolingual or a multilingual sign, what language(s) is/are used in the sign, and which of the languages used is the dominant one in the case of a multilingual sign. A total of 689 digital photos of public signs were collected from two main streets in Chinatown and Little India, Kuala Lumpur and were analysed quantitatively with the aid of FileMaker 10.0. The paper takes a linguistic landscape (LL) approach to the language use of two minority communities in Malaysia. The demographic characteristics which predict sustained use of the ethnic language are the vitality of the ethnic group, rural locality and lower socio-economic status. In the ethnically heterogeneous public domains of transaction and friendship, the ethnic language is for intra- and Malay varieties for inter-ethnic communication. The ethnic language is still strong in the family and religious domains but has little place in the education and mass media domains. The results show that the domains of the ethnic language are shrinking because of the growing presence of Malay varieties (Standard Malay and Sarawak Malay), particularly for smaller groups.

The language use survey involved 568 indigenous adolescents in six schools in Sarawak, Malaysia.

The specific aspects examined were: the presence of ethnic languages in relation to other languages in selected domains of language use the adolescents' use of the ethnic language across generations in the family domain language use patterns of different indigenous groups and demographic variables which influence use of the ethnic languages for the indigenous groups.

The study examines the sustainability status of Sarawak indigenous languages through a survey on adolescents' language use using the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS).

Sarawak malysia