These concise lectures have been developed and refined over a period of ten years asthe basis for the author's senior and first-year graduate course on language contact. They providefactual information on and interpretations of a topic of obvious sociolinguistic importance;Lehiste's more formal linguistic approach (reflected in the emphasis on the experimental testing oftheories) offers the student a firm background to which sociological and anthropological data can beadded through collateral reading.The book summarizes a large literature in a quick, thorough way andadds a useful glossary and rich bibliography. Among the topics covered are the concept ofinterference, bilingualism, language convergence, and pidgins and creoles. The examples are drawnfrom European sources (reflecting the author's own work), but references are given to otherareas.Useful as a condensed survey of existing information, and incorporating the author's ownresearch, the text covers the major aspects of language contact, including the concept of linguisticaffinity (Sprachbund); language contact as a cause of linguistic change; results of languagecontact; methods of comparing linguistic structures; concepts of linguistic convergence andlinguistic interference; comparisons of the language usages of monolingual speakers with those ofbilingual and multilingual speakers; and separate treatments of the bilingual individual and thebilingual community. Social aspects of the contact situation - with illustrative case histories -are described and analyzed.Ilse Lehiste was Professor of Linguistics in the Department ofLinguistics at Ohio State University since its founding in 1965 until 1987, and Chairman of theDepartment during the years 1965-1971 and 1985-1987. Her previous books include Principles andMethods for Historical Linguistics (with Robert Jeffers) and Word and Sentence Prosody inSerbocroatian (with Pavle Ivic).