Synopsis
On the Flathead Reservation in northwestern Montana, the sixty remaining fluent speakers of Montana Salish, most of them elderly, speak their language only to each other, changing to English when outsiders or younger tribal members are present. The Aleuts who used to live on Bering Island off the east coast of Russia speak Russian in addition to their native Aleut. The Republic of Singapore, an island nation of just 238 square miles, boasts four official languages. Language contact is no nation has a completely monolingual citizenry and many have more than one official language.
Sarah G. Thomason documents the linguistic consequences of language contacts worldwide. Surveying situations in which language contact arises, she focuses on what happens to the languages sometimes nothing, sometimes the incorporation of new words, sometimes the spread of new sounds and sentence structures across many languages and wide swathes of territory. She outlines the origins and results of contact-induced language change, extreme language mixture--which can produce pidgins, creoles, and bilingual mixed languages--and language death. The book concludes with a brief survey of language endangerment.
Complete with lists of additional readings and references as well as a glossary for students new to the subject, this textbook is a richly documented introduction to a lively, fast-developing field.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Sarah G. Thomason is professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan.
Review
A eulogy to the richness of expression in language ! This is a very exciting book for readers who take delight in the diversity of the world's languages as well as for those readers who have made it their task to theorize about language on the basis of speech behaviour. Written with a common sense attitude and a sense of humor, with examples often drawn from the author's own research or personal experience. It is to be recommended both to students and to interested individuals not just as a textbook, but as an exciting reading material in general. A eulogy to the richness of expression in language ! This is a very exciting book for readers who take delight in the diversity of the world's languages as well as for those readers who have made it their task to theorize about language on the basis of speech behaviour. Written with a common sense attitude and a sense of humor, with examples often drawn from the author's own research or personal experience. It is to be recommended both to students and to interested individuals not just as a textbook, but as an exciting reading material in general.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
