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.

Acknowledgements Introduction Contact, Isolation and Language Change: A Theoretical Framework Tristan da Cunha Methodology and Fieldwork Determining Input Interaction - Present Tense Concord Categoricality and Homogenisation - Present/past be regularisation Dynamism vs Retention - Completive done Innovation and Independent Developments - useta went Conclusion Notes Appendix: Some Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Tristan da Cunha English Bibliography Index

DANIEL SCHREIER is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Regensburg, Germany. He has published extensively on contact linguistics and new-dialect formation and has taught and lectured in Switzerland, the USA and in New Zealand.