Contact Languages of the Pacific

Abstract

With over 1,000 indigenous languages and a recent history of colonial exploitation, the Pacific region has provided a fertile context for the growth of contact languages. This chapter first describes new languages (pidgins and creoles) and then new dialects (koines and indigenized varieties) that have emerged in the Pacific as the result of language contact. For the purpose of this chapter, the Pacific region is defined as including only small island countries and territories (thus excluding Australia, New Zealand, and the countries of Asia and the Americas that border the Pacific Ocean). Also, due to space limitations, the chapter concentrates only on lexicon and morphosyntax.