Creolization of Language and Culture is the first English edition of Robert Chaudenson's landmark text Des iles, des hommes, des langues, which has also been fully revised. Referring to the main varieties of creole French, Chaudenson argues against the traditional account of the origins of creole for a more sophisticated view which takes account of the peculiar linguistic and social factors at play in colonial societies. This is an accessible book which makes an important contribution to the study of pidgin and creole language varieties, as well as to the development of contemporary European...

This major new work explores the development of creoles and other new languages, focusing on the conceptual and methodological issues they raise for genetic linguistics. Written by an internationally renowned linguist, the book surveys a wide range of examples of changes in the structure, function and vitality of languages, and suggests that similar ecologies have played the same kinds of roles in all cases of language evolution. The Ecology of Language Evolution will be welcomed by students and researchers in sociolinguistics, creolistics, theoretical linguistics and theories of evolution.

The phenomenon of language contact, and how it affects the structure of languages, has been of great interest to linguists in recent years. This pioneering new study looks at how grammatical forms and structures evolve when speakers of two languages come into contact, and offers insight into the mechanism that induces people to transfer grammatical structures from one language to another. The book will be of great interest to all working in grammaticalization, language contact, and language change.