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{{Short description|Type of linguistic change}}
'''Language convergence''' is a type of linguistic change in which languages come to structurally resemble one another as a result of prolonged language contact and mutual interference.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=An Introduction to Historical Linguistics|last=Crowley|first=Terry|last2=Bowern|first2=Claire|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2010|isbn=0195365542|location=New York|pages=269–272}}</ref> In contrast to other contact-induced language changes like [[creolization]] or the formation of [[Mixed language|mixed languages,]] convergence refers to a mutual process that results in changes in all the languages involved.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Language Contact: An Introduction|last=Thomason|first=Sarah|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=2001|isbn=0748607196|location=Edinburgh|pages=89–90, 152}}</ref> Linguists use the term to describe changes in the linguistic patterns of the languages in contact rather than alterations of isolated lexical items.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=The Handbook of Language Contact|last=|first=|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2010|isbn=1444318160|editor-last=Hickey|editor-first=Raymond|location=Malden, MA|pages=19, 68–9, 76, 285–87}}</ref>▼
{{More citations needed|date=January 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}}
 
▲'''Language convergence''' is a type of linguistic change in which languages come to structurally resemble one another structurally as a result of prolonged language contact and mutual interference, regardless of whether those languages belong to the same [[language family]], i.e. stem from a common genealogical [[proto-language]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=An Introduction to Historical Linguistics|last=Crowley|first=Terry|last2=Bowern|first2=Claire|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2010|isbn=0195365542|location=New York|pages=269–272}}</ref> In contrast to other contact-induced language changes like [[Creole language|creolization]] or the formation of [[Mixed language|mixed languages,]], convergence refers to a mutual process that results in changes in all the languages involved.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Language Contact: An Introduction|last=Thomason|first=Sarah|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=2001|isbn=0748607196|location=Edinburgh|pages=89–90, 152}}</ref> Linguists use theThe term refers to describe changes in thesystematic linguistic patterns of the languages in contact ([[phonology]], [[prosody (linguistics)|prosody]], [[syntax]], [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]]) rather than alterations of isolatedindividual lexical items.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=The Handbook of Language Contact|last=|first=|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2010|isbn=1444318160|editor-last=Hickey|editor-first=Raymond|location=Malden, MA|pages=19, 68–9, 76, 285–87}}</ref>
 
== Contexts ==
 
Language convergence occurs in geographic areas with two or more unrelated languages in contact, resulting in groups of languages with similar linguistic features that were not inherited from each language's [[proto-language]].<ref name=":0" /> These geographic and linguistic groups are called linguistic areas, or [[Sprachbund]] areas.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title=An Introduction to Contact Linguistics|last=Winford|first=Donald|publisher=Blackwell|year=2003|isbn=0631212515|location=Malden, MA|pages=65, 70–78}}</ref> Linguistic features shared by the languages in a language area as a result of language convergence are called areal features.<ref name=":0" /> In situations with many languages in contact and a variety of areal features, linguists may use the term language convergence to indicate the impossibility of locating a singular source for each areal feature.<ref name=":1" /> However, as the classification of linguistic areas and language convergence depends on shared areal features, linguists must distinguish between areal features resulting from convergence and internally motivated changes resulting in chance similarities between languages.<ref name=":4">Appel, René; Pieter Muysken (1987). “Language Contact and Language Change,” In ''Language Contact and Bilingualism.'' New York: Edward Arnold. pp. 153-163.</ref>
 
Language convergence can also occur for a particular person's grammar. It sometimes occurs in children who are acquiring a second language. Because the grammar of the child's native language is still developing, the grammar patterns of the first and second language can influence each other. Singaporean students learning both English and Mandarin showed use of common Mandarin grammatical structures when speaking English.<ref>Chen, Ee San (2003) Language Convergence and Bilingual Acquisition, Annual Review of Language Acquisition, vol. 3, 89–137, {{doi|10.1075/arla.3.05che}}</ref>
 
== Mechanisms ==
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== Results ==
 
Language convergence often results in the increased frequency of preexisting patterns in a language; if one feature is present in two languages in contact, convergence results in increased use and cross-linguistic similarity of the parallel feature.<ref name=":2" /> As contact situations leading to language convergence lack defined [[Stratum (linguistics)|substrate and superstrate languages,]], the outcomes of convergence often resemble structures found in all the languages involved without perfectly replicating any one pattern.<ref name=":1" /> Language convergence is most apparent in phonetics, with the phonological systems of the languages in contact gradually coming to resemble one another.<ref name=":4" /> In some cases, the results of phonological convergence may be limited to a few phonemes, while in other linguistic areas phonological convergence can result in widespread changes that affect the entire phonological system, such as the development of phonemic tone distinctions.<ref name=":4" /> In contrast to the limited effects of lexical borrowing, phonetic, syntactic, or morphological convergence can have greater consequences, as converging patterns can influence an entire system rather than only a handful of lexical items.<ref name=":2" />
 
== Difficulties ==
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== Examples ==
 
* [[Balkan sprachbund|Balkans Sprachbund]]: Contact between AD 800 and AD 1701700 leadled to changes in [[phonology]], morphology, [[syntax]], and [[lexicon]] of [[Albanian language|Albanian,]], [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian,]], [[Romanian language|Romanian,]], and [[Greek language|Greek.]] The Balkans Sprachbund is an extreme case of language convergence.<ref name=":3" />
* [[Arnhem Land]], Australia: [[Morphosyntactic]] convergence and massive lexical diffusion in the Yuulgnu languages Ritharngnu, Dhayʔyi, and others and the “Prefixing” languages Ngandi, Nunggubuyu, and others, though long periods of separation helped to preserve language boundaries.<ref name=":3" />
* [[Spanish language|Spanish]] and [[Quechuan languages|Quechua:]] Phonological convergence of the palatal /lʎ/ in Spanish and Quechua. Northern variants of Ecuadorian Spanish and Quechua include the innovative /ž/[ʒ] while southern variants of both languages maintain the /l̃/[ʎ] pronunciation.<ref name=":4" />
* [[Chinese language|Chinese]], [[Thai language|Thai]], and [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese:]] Form a [[Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area|linguistic area]] based on the areal feature of [[Phoneme|phonemic]] tone distinctions.<ref name=":0" />
* [[Indo-EuropeanAryan languages|Indo-EuropeanAryan]] and [[Dravidian languages]]: Include the shared areal feature of [[Retroflex consonant|retroflex consonants.]]<ref name=":0" />
* Chipewyan, Cree, French, and English: Phonological convergence of c and s-series consonants.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Scollon|first=Ronald|date=1979-01-01|title=Variable Data and Linguistic Convergence: Texts and Contexts in Chipewyan|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/=4167072|journal=Language in Society|volume=8|issue=2|pages=223–243|doi=10.1017/s0047404500007442}}</ref>
* [[Standard Average European]] - the convergence of several European languages, both [[Indo European languages|Indo-European]] and unrelated ones
 
==See also==
*[[SprachbundDialect levelling]]
*[[Mixed language]]▼
*[[Linguistic divergence]]
*[[Dialect levelling]]
*[[Maltese language]]
▲*[[Mixed language]]
*[[Sprachbund]]
 
== References ==
<references />
 
== External links ==
*[http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/research/projects/lcla/ The convergenceConvergence projectProject]{{Dead link|date=August 2024}}
 
[[Category:Language contact]]
 
 
{{sociolinguistics-stub}}
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