Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.
Contents
- Borrowing of vocabulary
- Adoption of other language features
- Language shift
- Stratal influence
- Creation of new languages creolization and mixed languages
- Mutual and non mutual influence
- Linguistic hegemony
- Dialectal and sub cultural change
- Sign languages
- References
Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual.
When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum languages, or as the result of migration, with an intrusive language acting as either a superstratum or a substratum.
Language contact occurs in a variety of phenomena, including language convergence, borrowing and relexification. The most common products are pidgins, creoles, code-switching, and mixed languages. Other hybrid languages, such as