Siraiki, the language of millions of people is slowly losing ground to officially recognized and promoted languages, Urdu and English in home domain. A large number of parents living in urban Multan are deserting Siraiki and are not transmitting it to their children. This paper aims to elaborate shame as an important factor in ‘Language Desertion’. Drawing from the theories of shame presented by Brown & Levinson (1978), Cooly (1922), Goffman (1967), Elias (1982), Lewis (1971) and Scheff (1994) I have analysed the dynamics of shame giving a fuller account of how the different structures of a society combine to demean Siraiki speakers even in their own estimation. This paper explicitly links the theories of shame and face with the discourses of the Siraikis by citing examples from their home conversations and quoting from their interviews. The phenomenon of code switching is also shown to be a cause or result of shame and/or pride.

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