Language abandonment is widespread in the sense that young people who may have heard it at home do not necessarily continue to speak it with their peers outside the home. It is also widespread in the sense that there are many parents who do not transmit the language to their children at all, particularly in the Colombo area. This is most likely in middle class professional families, in which the home language becomes not Sinhala, but English. It is not very common for those who grew up speaking it to cease speaking it altogether. The clear exceptions to this are when they marry non-speakers and live in areas in which continuing to speak Sri Lankan Malay would be unusual to begin with, and after emigrating to another country. Those individuals who marry a non-speaker and also emigrate seem to be the least likely to continue to speak Sri Lankan Malay, even though they grew up with the language.