Readership: Primary: linguistic faculty and students, anthropologists, and sociologists. Secondary: historians, psychologists, philosophers, and archaeologists.
Alexandra Aikhenvald, La Trobe University
"...one of the essential resources in language-contact literature." - Edward J Vajda, Western Washington University
"Language Contact in Amazonia has the indisputable merit of conveying and analysing the phenomena surrounding language contact in a concrete and straightforward way ... Many existing preconceptions will be challenged by the highly unusual and compelling character of these Tariana data, which may be unique of their kind. There can be no doubt that Aikhenvald's book will have a lasting influence on future theoretical developments related to language contact." - Journal of Linguistics
"What makes this book an outstanding source for understanding of contact-induced language change is, first, that it constitutes one of the most comprehensive studies that are available on the impact of language contact on a particular group of languages, and, second, that it describes in detail the magnitude of areal diffusion and its implications for grammatical categorization." - Journal of Social Linguistics
"It is hard to find any deficiencies in this volume ... the text is coherent and intelligible. The findings presented are remarkable." - Journal of Social Linguistics
"Language Contact in Amazonia is must reading for students of Amazonian languages, language change, convergence, areal linguistics, lexical and grammatical borrowing, and many other areas in the sociology of language." - SIL Electronic Book Reviews
1: Language contact and language change in Amazonia 2: Diffusional phenomena in phonology 3: Typological profile and pronominal systems of East Tucanoan and Arawak languages 4: Nominal categories and diffusion 5: Diffusion of verbal categories 6: Diffusional phenomena in syntax and in discourse 7: The impact of Portuguese on Tariana 8: How to keep languages apart: code-switching and code-mixing 9: Language awareness and correct speech among the Tariana 10: Diffusion of patterns and direct diffusion in the Vaupes 11: Language obsolescence and language change in Tariana 12: Language contact in multilingual situations: conclusions
