The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact

Abstract

Every language has been influenced in some way by other languages through contact-induced linguistic change. Potentially any features can be transferred from one language to another if the sociolinguistic and structural circumstances are right. New languages –pidgins, creoles and mixed languages- can come into being as the result of language contact. This book examines the various forms of contact-induced linguistic change and the levels of language which have provided instances of these influences. In addition it provides accounts of how language contact has affected some twenty languages, spoken and signed, from all parts of the world. Each chapter is written by experts, in many cases native speakers of the language in question, each with many years of studying and analysing the field. Drawing on the most up-to-date work on relevant language an themes, this book is an invaluable account of the possibilities and products of contact-induced linguistic change.

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