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"This highly original and timely collection brings together case studies from salient areas of the Himalayan region to explore the politics of language contact. Promoting a linguistically and historically grounded perspective, The Politics of Language Contact in the Himalaya offers nuanced insights into language and its relation to power in this geopolitically complex region. Edited by respected scholars in the field, the collection comprises five new research contributions by established and early-career researchers who have been significantly engaged in the Himalayan region. Grounded in a commitment to theoretically informed area studies, and covering Tibet (China), Assam (India), and Nepal, each case study is situated within contemporary debates in sociolinguistics, political science, and language policy and planning. Bridging disciplines and transcending nation-states, the volume offers a unique contribution to the study of language contact and its political implications. The Politics of Language Contact in the Himalaya is essential reading for researchers in the fields of language policy and planning, applied linguistics, and language and literary education. The detailed introduction and concluding commentary make the collection accessible to all social scientists concerned with questions of language, and the volume as a whole will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, sociolinguistics, political science and Asian studies."--Publisher's website

The goals of this paper are to examine several aspects oflanguage contact involving languages of the Chaco region. More specifically,I discuss changes that are unexpected in situations of intensive contact; Iconsider possible explanations for resistance to lexical borrowing; I addressthe implications of language contact in these Chaco languages for claims aboutchange in language contact situations in general; I evaluate claims regardingmixed languages in the region; and I investigate diffused linguistic traits in theChaco and determine whether the Chaco is a linguistic area.

In language contact research, there is an interrelationship between language systems, social and communicative factors and psycholinguistic processing. Language contact can be associated with face-to-face communication among community members who use different language varieties, as well as with non-personal contact of people using the written medium. Language contact can contribute to the transfer of linguistic patterns and units from one system to another. Stable contact can result in both lexical and grammatical influences, the process being mutual rather than unidirectional. According to Braunmüller and House, language contact and contact-induced variation and change, which can result in convergence and divergence, are omnipresent characteristic features of languages in use.
1
Winford takes a similar view and argues that the degree and nature of structural convergence depend on an array of linguistic, social and historical factors. However, he remarks that it is problematic to differentiate between internally motivated changes and transmission from external sources.
2
The present research paper deals with the dynamics of the language systems in contact and observes how the languages of bilinguals develop similarities (convergence) and how they distinguish between the two languages in particular ways (divergence).
This research employs the corpus of written language samples sourced from the Australian-Hungarian community's newspaper, entitled Hungarian Life (Magyar Élet). Many of the immigrants who produce text for the newspaper retain the Hungarian language, but have become bilingual in English.

The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. The series considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language.

AbstractIn this article we study a language contact situation in Majorca, Spain, in which adult monolingual speakers of Spanish who arrived recently in Majorca acquire aspects of Majorcan Catalan prosody. Although the possibility that the adoption of features can take place directly from Catalan is not rejected, we provide evidence that it can be an indirect process, through a process of accommodation (Trudgill 1986; Giles and Coupland 1991) to the L2 variety of Spanish spoken by L1 Majorcan Catalan speakers. An experiment was set up in which we recorded four native Spanish speakers who arrived recently in Majorca holding a semi-directed conversation in Spanish with a native speaker of Majorcan Catalan. The results showed consistent adoption of prosodic features of L2 Majorcan Spanish in interrogative sentences (not in declaratives). The results support the idea that the adoption of prosodic features of Majorcan Catalan by monolingual Spanish speakers can take place in early stages of contact. Our article also shows that subjective factors such as determination towards integration play a fundamental role in determining the degree of accommodation. Finally, salience of prosodic features is claimed to play a role in the selection of transferred features.

Abstract
In introducing this special issue on Japanese outside of Japan, this article sets the scene by providing an overview of the genesis and trajectories of the Japanese diaspora which examines the history of international population movements, demographic transitions, educational orientations and language situations in the resulting communities. It touches upon: (a) the disappearance of the oldest nihon machi (Japan towns) formed by fleeing samurai and traders as refugee and trade diasporas; (b) the emergence of Nikkei (Japanese ancestry) identities in Japanese labour diaspora communities; (c) the obsolescence of varieties of Japanese learnt/acquired during childhood in imperial diaspora contexts, along with the employment and integration of Japanese borrowings in the local languages; (d) the contrast in the social lives and language situations in global Japanese diaspora communities between affluent long-term residents living within Japanese norms, on the one hand, and, on the other, permanent residents seeking personal freedom from these norms; and (e) the contrasting social realities in contemporary Japan of returnee children of Japanese diplomats and expatriate Japanese business executives as a new privileged class, on the one hand, and returnee Nikkei Latin Americans working as foreign labourers in Japan, on the other. Given the wide range of historical and socio-economic contexts in which the Japanese diaspora found itself, we conclude that it continues to provide a rich seam of potential sociolinguistic enquiry, which may provide an illustrative framework serving as a possible model for the historicised analysis of diasporic sociolinguistic complexities in other world contexts.

Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Bibliography -- Chapter 2: Sociolinguistics of Multilingualism in Nepal -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Linguistic Diversity and Language Vitality in Nepal -- 2.2.1 The Status of Nepal's Languages -- 2.2.2 Writing Systems -- 2.2.3 Language Vitality in Nepal -- 2.3 Existing Language Provision and Policy in Nepal -- 2.4 The Role of the Nepali Language -- 2.5 Factors Supporting Nepali as the National Language -- 2.5.1 Political Factors -- 2.5.2 Religious Factors -- 2.5.3 Economic Factors -- 2.5.4 Sociocultural Factors -- 2.6 The Nepali Language in Contact with English -- 2.7 Code Switching/Mixing Among Various Languages -- 2.8 Language Choice and Family Bilingualism -- Bibliography -- Chapter 3: Language Contact in Nepal -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 Multilingualism and Language Contact in Nepal -- 3.2.1 Foreign Employment -- 3.2.2 Media and Music -- 3.2.3 Travel and Tourism -- 3.2.4 Urbanization and Globalization -- 3.3 Multilingualism and (Un)democratic Practices in Nepal -- 3.3.1 The Ancient Period (Prehistoric to 1769 ad) -- 3.3.2 The Medieval Period (1769-1951 ad) -- 3.3.3 The Modern Period (1951-) -- 3.4 Urbanization and Language Contact in Nepal -- 3.5 Language Contact and Change -- 3.6 Language Ideology and Attitudes -- 3.7 Language Contact Studies in Nepal -- 3.8 Summary -- Bibliography -- Chapter 4: Language Contact in Sherpa -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Sherpa People and Language -- 4.2.1 The Sherpa People -- 4.2.2 The Sherpa Language -- 4.2.3 The Ethno-Linguistic Situation of Sherpa in Kathmandu Valley -- 4.3 Domains of Language Use in Sherpa -- 4.3.1 Informal Situations -- 4.3.1.1 Behavioral Activities -- 4.3.1.2 Personal Activities -- 4.3.2 Formal Situation/Activities -- 4.3.3 Religious and Cultural Activities.

The volume is highly relevant to the current regional and international discussion on endangered languages, language contact, documentation and areal typology. The publication is the outcome of a fruitful theoretical and methodological exchange between Latin American scholars and international scholars working in other regions. Most of the papers target Latin American languages. Additionally, new insight into the contact situations in Indonesia, Iran, Australia and Papua New Guinea is provided.

This volume brings together eleven studies on the history of language and writing in the North Sea area, with focus on contacts and interchanges through time. Its range spans from the investigation of pre-Germanic place-names to present-day Shetland; the materials studied include glosses, legal and trade documents as well as place names and modern dialects. The volume is unique in its combination of linguistics and place-name studies with literacy studies, which allows for a very dynamic picture of the history of language contact and texts in the North Sea area. Different approaches come together to illuminate a major insight: the omnipresence of multilingualism as a context for language development and a formative characteristic of literacy. Among the contributors are experts on English, Nordic and German language history. The book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students working on the history of Northern European languages, literacy studies and language contact