Isolation and Language Change: Contemporary and Sociohistorical Evidence from Tristan da Cunha English

Extremely isolated communities offer 'laboratory conditions' for examining the processes of language change and dialect formation. This book presents findings of the first-ever ethnographic fieldwork on the most remote island in the world with a permanent population, Tristan da Cunha. It documents the historical formation of a unique local dialect and investigates the sociolinguistic mechanisms that underlie dialect contact and new-dialect formation. It also uncovers the linguistic consequences of post-insularity - language change processes as a result of increasing contacts with other communities and speakers. Researchers and students of language variation will find this book a unique resource.