CONTACT LANGUAGE

Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | 1998 | 525 words | Copyright

CONTACT LANGUAGE. In SOCIOLINGUISTICS, a simplified variety of language that develops in situations where most speakers have no common language, such as ports, trading posts, plantations, and colonial garrison towns. It generally retains features of the varieties that contribute to it, usually local vernaculars and one or more languages brought by traders, settlers, soldiers, and missionaries. It may also draw on universal strategies for communicating without a shared language. See FOREIGNER TALK, LINGUA FRANCA, PIDGIN.

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TOM McARTHUR. "CONTACT LANGUAGE." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

TOM McARTHUR. "CONTACT LANGUAGE." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-CONTACTLANGUAGE.html

TOM McARTHUR. "CONTACT LANGUAGE." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-CONTACTLANGUAGE.html

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