Language convergence: Difference between revisions

{{more citations needed|date=January 2018}}'''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:denzel An madrid/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>