Overview

Presenting linguistic and historical sketches of lesser-known contact languages, this work aims to contribute to a more balanced view of the most dramatic results of language contact. The 12 case studies offer testimony against the view that all contact languages are pidgins and creoles with maximally simple and essentially identical grammars. They show that some contact languages are neither pidgins nor creoles, and that they can display considerable structural diversity and complexity; they also show that two-language contact situations can give rise to pidgins, especially when access to a target language is withheld by its speakers. The chapters are arranged by language type: three focus on pidgins (Hiri Motu, Pidgin Delaware and Ndyuka-Trio Pidgin); one on a set of pidgins and creoles (Arabic-based contact languages); one on the question of early pidginization and/or creolization in Swahili; and five on bilingual mixed languages (Michif, Media Lengua and Callahuaya, and Mednyj Aleut and Ma'a). The goal of this volume is to help offset the traditional emphasis on pidgins and creoles that arose as an immediate results of contact with Europeans, starting in the Age of Exploration.

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9789027252395

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