This textbook is a clear and concise introduction to the study of how newlanguages come into being. Starting with an overview of the fields basicconcepts it sur... » 

This textbook is a clear and concise introduction to the study of how newlanguages come into being. Starting with an overview of the fields basicconcepts it surveys the new languages that developed as a result of theEuropean expansion to the Americas Africa Asia and the Pacific. Longmisunderstood as bad versions of European languages today such varieties asJamaican Creole English Haitian Creole French and New Guinea Pidgin arerecognized as distinct languages in their own right. John Holm examines thestructure of these pidgins and creoles the social history of their speakersand the theories put forward to explain how their vocabularies sound systemsand grammars evolved. His new findings on structural typology including nonAtlantic creoles permit a wideranging assessment of the nature ofrestructured languages worldwide. This muchneeded book will be welcomed bystudents and researchers in linguistics sociolinguistics western Europeanlanguages anthropology and sociology. «