Overview

What happens when Chinese is shaped by centuries of contact with Mongolic, Tungusic, Turkic, and Tibetic languages? This volume explores this question through striking case studies of lects like Tangwang and Wutun, where Chinese exhibits unexpected features such as OV word order, case suffixes, and restructured verbal morphology. Drawing on rare fieldwork data, this volume reveals how deep multilingual interaction transforms grammatical systems. It offers a unique contribution to the study of language change, typology, and contact linguistics—essential reading for anyone interested in how languages evolve in complex sociolinguistic environments.

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Redouane Djamouri, Director of Research at CNRS and member of CRLAO, specializes in Archaic Chinese syntax and semantics. His recent work explores language contact in China, especially with Altaic languages, and includes field research on Tangwang since 2008. Christine Lamarre, professor emerita at Inalco and member of CRLAO, specializes in morpho-syntactic variation in Sinitic languages. Her research covers modality, motion, aspect, and tense, with fieldwork in Northern China and studies based on historical Chinese grammar texts. Julie P.M. Lefort, Associate Professor at INALCO and member of CRLAO, researches Sino-Mongolian language contact in Gansu, focusing on Dongxiang and hybrid varieties like Linxia and Tangwang. Her work combines fieldwork, typology, and contact-induced grammaticalization, with several related publications.

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