Description: Language contact - the linguistic and social outcomes of two or more languages coming into contact with each other - has been pervasive in human history. Whether or not we are aware of it, we as humans always deal with language contact. Bringing together contributions from an international team of scholars, this two-volume Handbook represents the state-of-the-art in the field of language contact. The first volume focuses on population movement and language change, and the second volume looks at multilingualism and population structure. Each of the two volumes start with an introduction outlining the history of the research in the field. They are then organised into thematic parts, and cover the processes, theoretical issues and outcomes involved in a range of language contact situations worldwide. Easy-to-read yet wide-ranging in scope, the Handbook is essential reading for anybody interested in how people behave linguistically in multilingual or multilectal settings.
Brief description: Salikoko S. Mufwene is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago. His current research is on the phylogenetic emergence and speciation of languages, and on language vitality. His books include The Ecology of Language Evolution (CUP, 2001), Iberian Imperialism and Language Evolution in Latin America (U of Chicago Press, 2014), and Bridging Linguistics and Economics (CUP, 2020). He is the founding editor of Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact.
Review Quotes: 'In this two-volume Cambridge handbook, Mufwene and Escobar have assembled four dozen novel studies on linguistic change, as induced or conditioned by migration, language contact, multilingualism and population structure. This hefty new reference work provides an important resource on language change in the living context of human societies.' George van Driem, Chair of Historical Linguistics, University of Bern