Contact language

Not to be confused with Language contact.

A contact language is a language developed spontaneously by two (or more) populations, each initially speaking their own language, as they come into regular contact and find ways to communicate together – whether for trade or other reasons.

Contact languages have varying degrees of complexity, depending on the duration and intensity of social relations between the two groups. They may range from basic trade languages with limited vocabulary, to fully-fledged language systems, known as pidgins and creoles.

When the resulting language shows a rough balance between elements of both original languages, it is labelled a hybrid or mixed language. When the contact language results from the merger of dialects that were already close to begin with, the resulting contact language is known as a koiné.

See also

• Sabir language
• Pidgin
• Creole language
• Mixed language
• Language contact
• Lingua franca

Further reading

• Bakker, Peter & Yaron Matras (eds), 2013. Contact Languages: A Comprehensive Guide. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-1614514763.
• Hickey, Raymond (ed.), 2010. The Handbook of Language Contact. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Sarah Thomason & Terrence Kaufman, 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics (University of California Press).
• Sarah Thomason, 2001. Language Contact - An Introduction. Edinburgh University Press.

External links

• The dictionary definition of contact language at Wiktionary