Language contact in language obsolescence

Abstract

The difference between language change in "healthy" and in endangered or obsolescent languages very often lies not in the sorts of change, which tend to be the same (Campbell and Muntzel 1989). It tends to lie in the quantity of change and in the speed with which the obsolescent language changes (see Schmidt 1985: 213; Aikhenvald 2002: 243-264). Language displacement frequently results in reduction of paradigms, simplification and loss of the language's own features, and, ultimately, language shift and loss. As the obsolescent language is "retreating, contracting, as it gradually falls into disuse" (Dixon 1991a: 199), we expect it to be flooded with an influx of patterns and forms from the dominant language.