Language Contact

Areal linguistics is having its -Golden Age-, but its doleful problems as well. Its theory of language contact and linguistic interference is full of controversies which can be resolved only by a thorough analysis of the essentials of language interrelations and the results of their interactions. The monograph is based on a large corpus of linguistic and extralinguistic material collected during the last few decades (including field-work in different countries of Europe, Asia and North America) on the results of language contacts between English, German and other Teutonic languages, between Romance, Slavic and other Indo-European vernaculars, between Uralic, Turkic, Tungusic-Manchurian and Palaeo-Asian, and other languages. An attempt is made to gain an insight into the -mechanism- of language contact, to single out its types and subtypes and to project the -curve- of the dynamism of their linguistic interference (the receptor-language levels' penetrability). Special attention is paid to different varieties of plurilingualism."