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Language contact
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{{Short description|Interaction between different languages}} {{Research paper|date=May 2025}} '''Language contact''' occurs when speakers of two or more [[languages]] or [[Variety (linguistics)|varieties]] interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called '''contact linguistics'''. Language contact can occur at [[language border]]s,<ref>Hadzibeganovic, Tarik, Stauffer, Dietrich & Schulze, Christian (2008). Boundary effects in a three-state modified voter model for languages. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 387(13), 3242β3252.</ref> between [[adstratum]] languages, or as the result of [[human migration|migration]], with an intrusive language acting as either a [[superstratum]] or a [[Substrata (linguistics)|substratum]]. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Intensive language contact may result in [[language convergence]] or [[relexification]]. In some cases a new '''contact language''' may be created as a result of the influence, such as a [[pidgin]], [[Creole language|creole]], or [[mixed language]]. In many other cases, contact between speakers occurs with smaller-scale lasting effects on the language; these may include the [[borrowing (linguistics)|borrowing]] of [[loanword]]s, [[calque]]s, or other types of linguistic material. [[Multilingualism]] has been common throughout much of [[human history]], and today most people in the world are multilingual.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cal.org/resources/Digest/digestglobal.html|title=CAL: Digests: A Global Perspective on Bilingualism and Bilingual Education|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120822104004/http://www.cal.org/resources/Digest/digestglobal.html|archive-date=2012-08-22|url-status=dead|access-date=2012-05-16}} ''A Global Perspective on Bilingualism and Bilingual Education'' (1999), G. Richard Tucker, Carnegie Mellon University</ref> Multilingual speakers may engage in [[code-switching]], the use of multiple languages in a single conversation. Methods from [[sociolinguistics]]<ref>Gooden, Shelome. "Language Contact in a Sociolinguistics Context." in The Routledge Companion to the Work of John R. Rickford (2019).</ref> (the study of language use in society), from [[corpus linguistics]] and from [[formal linguistics]] are used in the study of language contact.
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