A short intoduction to contact languages

1. Contact and
convergence

2. Contact and convergence
Contact language
▸ Contact languages are languages that are formed by
frequent contact between two or more languages.
▸Contact languages are mainly developed in areas where two
native speakers of two different languages who do not speak
and understand language are in contact with each other

3. Contact and convergence
▸ Social situations where there is a fundamental need for
communication between these two speakers or speech
communities.
▸In such situations they are in need of a common language for
communication.
▸This results in the development of a new language that has not
existed before.
▸They began to consider this as their lingua franca

4. Contact and convergence
Pidgins
▸Pidgins are one of the major example for the contact
languages which are formed by frequent interaction or contact
between two or more speech communities.
▸It does not have any native speakers.
▸When nativised it becomes creole.
▸Pidgins have grammar which are simplified and reduced in
comparison with the grammers of their input languages

6. Contact and convergence
Language convergence
▸Linguistic change by which languages acquire structural
resemblance as a result of prolonged contact.
▸Speaker makes some linguistic accommodations in order to
match with the language of the receiver .
▸It occurs through diffusion that is, spreading of features from
one to another .

7. Contact and convergence
▸Mostly occurs between bilingual speakers through bilingual
code-switching .
▸So while studying such languages linguists tries to
distinguish the features from the proto language,
accommodative changes, as well as the diffusion from an outer
source.

8. Contact and convergence
▸Language divergence is the replacement of formal terms by
informal terms as a result of continuous usage of such terms.

9. THANK YOU
Likhith J
LLT051618
CONTACT AND CONVERGENCE