Languages have been coexisting and influencing each other since long before history was recorded. What are the situations in which contact can arise, how are the languages and communities changed in the process, and how can we learn about histories of contact from the languages themselves?

1. Language Contact

2. How Contact Happens
• Two groups enter unoccupied area
• A group encroaches in large numbers
• A group trickles in in small numbers
• Groups meet in No Man’s Land
• Long-time neighbors develop connection
• Language imposed through education

3. Contact Outcomes
• Contact-induced language change
– Change through borrowing
– Change through imperfect learning
• Extreme language mixture
– Pidgins and creoles
– Bilingual mixed languages
• Language death
– Attrition
– Grammatical replacement
– Extinction

4. Language Change
• Borrowing:
– Begins with non-basic words, then all words
– Phonology first in loans, then through the system
– Typologically compatible morphology and syntax
• Imperfect learning:
– Begins with syntax, avoiding unusual forms
– Phonology also changed to better match source
– Words taken in smaller quantities
– Changed language eventually assimilated into original
• The two types often happen in pairs

5. Language Mixture
• Pidgins
– Two languages in regular but limited contact
– Vocabulary usually from one language
– Structure takes most universal aspects of each
– No one’s native language, limited material
• Creoles
– Native language of a speech community
– May be developed as creole or stabilized pidgin
• Bilingual mixed languages
– Require speakers to be bilingual in two languages
– Code-switching happens in systematic ways
– Mixed languages are in-group only, not lingua franca

6. Language Death
• Attrition
– As speech community shrinks, material is lost
– Eventually, only able to express common concepts
– Usually leads to extinction
• Grammatical replacement
– Starts with borrowing from surrounding languages
– Eventually, little trace of original language remains
• Extinction
– First generation monolingual in original language
– Second generation bilingual with dominant language
– Third generation monolingual in new language

7. Multilingualism in Individuals
• Kids acquire two languages the same as one
– Make same mistakes regardless of other languages
– Aware from a young age of language distinction
• Second language learners influenced by first
– Contrastive analysis: teach differences from L1
– Error analysis: certain features are difficult regardless of L1
• Attitudes towards bilingualism
– Psychological handicap (provably false)
– Mark of education
– Mundane fact of existence
– Unwelcome necessity
– Element of ethnic identity

8. Multilingualism in Nations
• All nations are multilingual to some extent
• Most nations are meaningfully multilingual
• Language policy is a complex problem
– Maintaining national languages requires resources
– Choosing one language can promote one group
– Not all languages are sufficiently developed to use
– Language is used as a tool for expressing identity

9. Reference
• Sarah G. Thomason: Language Contact: An
Introduction.