Introduction

In the preceding chapters we have been concerned primarily with the products of contact between dialects of the same language. The next two chapters will broaden this discussion markedly by considering the results of contact and creation between closely related but apparently discrete languages. To what extent can the methodological and theoretical models proposed for the outcomes of dialect contact be applied to contact between near languages? Are further theoretical models necessary for this second set of tasks?

What happens when two (or more) closely related languages come into contact with each other? This is not an easy question to answer, primarily because the study of these contexts has not always been straightforward or, indeed, popular. It would be forgivable to think that the study of near-relative contact was perceived by some scholars as essentially a sideshow to the study of contact between much more distant languages, where a great many examples of these distant-contact contexts around the world have been analysed in major treatments of these issues, such as Thomason and Kaufman (1988). We have touched upon some of these in Chapter 1. The main issue is essentially whether we can say that the developments involved are any different for near-relative contact environments than for other contacts where relationship between the input varieties is either much more distant or non-existent. Carrying this out will inevitably involve discussion of linguistic states which ‘bleed into’ each other and which do not have absolute boundaries with other postulated linguistic states. In order to give us the greatest chance of developing a systematic sense of the changes involved, therefore, we will analyse contact across a wide range of contexts where discrete languages are involved, often particularly and markedly different from each other, before considering near-native contact. The languages and states analysed will lead to a greater understanding of how close-relative contact works (and does not work).

Pidgins and creoles – extreme-contact varieties

Let us begin, therefore, by considering the creation of a new language through contact between at least three languages.