Research on heritage languages predicts that contact-induced change is selective: Some variables shift while closely related ones remain intact. Fine-grained variationist evidence for this prediction, however, remains limited. We test it by analyzing object expression in Canberra Vietnamese, a community in which generational restructuring of subject expression is already documented. Contrary to the pattern found for subject expression, object expression remains systematically conditioned by Coreferentiality and social network language across generations, with only one localized generational effect: In second-person reference, Gen2 speakers shift from kin terms to pronouns. Read together, this pattern indicates that change targets particular variables rather than sweeping through the grammar. Examining multiple related variables within a single community is therefore necessary to capture the structured, uneven nature of change in heritage languages.

This paper investigates the use of the Hindi complementizer ki in English‑dominant bilingual interaction among Indian university students. The occurrence of ki is examined across language categories, discourse contexts, recurrent lexical environments and competing clause‑linking strategies using a corpus of collaborative academic discussions. The results show that ki occurs predominantly in English‑dominant discourse and is most frequently associated with cognition and reporting constructions. The findings further indicate that ki occurs within a limited number of recurrent lexical environments and alongside the English complementizer that and zero complementation. More broadly, the study demonstrates how a local grammatical resource remains active within English‑dominant interaction and suggests that language contact may be visible not only in lexical choice but also in patterns of clause linkage and discourse organisation. The paper therefore contributes to research on bilingual discourse, language contact and the role of local grammatical resources in multilingual Englishes.

This article investigates gender and number agreement on definite articles, adjectives, and pronouns in one Pennsylvania Dutch variety spoken by the Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The findings, based on eight speakers, suggest that the nominal system in this variety is undergoing change. In this study, gender and number are inconsistently marked. The historical neuter definite article es has become quite rare. The feminine and plural definite articles are frequently indistinguishable from the masculine. Gender and number marking on adjective inflections is better preserved although variation occurs. Finally, pronominal reference is less conditioned by grammatical gender agreement and more conditioned by semantic features than might be expected based on the German heritage of Pennsylvania Dutch. We conclude that these changes are impacted both by language-internal developments and influence from English.

The article revisits Schneider and Schröder’s (2021) assessment of Namibian English (NamE) as a ‘non‑postcolonial’ variety that has moved from a phase of diffuse normative input into a yet uncompleted Phase 3 (‘nativization’) and that – due to ‘ethnic variation’ – remains well short of displaying the ‘homogeneity’ expected of Phase 4 (‘endonormative stabilization’). The article examines the historical record and draws on both perceptual and linguistic datasets collected across Namibian ethnolinguistic groups. The historical record suggests that early NamE was likely not distinct from South African English (SAE), at least in its high‑status varieties, during a period in which SAE moved through Phase 2 into the end of Phase 3. This creates the expectation that, in its high‑status varieties, NamE orbits around inherited SAE models. However, based on the datasets, (urban) NamE seems to have somewhat drifted away from SAE and moved into Phase 4 by displaying some distinctive pragmatic markers and a distinctive high‑status phonetic variety, both with considerable cross‑ethnic diffusion. Importantly, this transition into Phase 4 does not preclude ethnic variation nor continued alignment with SAE’s historically normative varieties in some sections of the population. The article finally argues that transitions into Phase 4 are best established by examining the role of English in local accommodation practices and stratified patterns of variation across gender and social class, likely to reveal the location of (endogenous or exogenous) high‑status norms on the social spectrum and degrees of consensus around them.

Tocharian A ṣtākkrukke* occurs in the Maitreyasamiti-Nāṭaka, an extensive drama on the future Buddha Maitreya written in Tocharian A. Based on the Old Uyghur translation of the text, a preliminary translation of “slanderer” has been proposed, but nothing else is known about the history of the word. In this article, I argue that it was borrowed from an earlier form of Old Khotanese ṣṭakulcā-, a derivative of Old Khotanese ṣṭakulā- “abuse”. In its turn, Old Khotanese ṣṭakulā- “abuse” may have been borrowed from an unattested Gāndhārī source. By examining Old Uyghur, Old Khotanese, Late Khotanese and Buddhist Sanskrit sources, I uncover the complex web of relationships that surrounds Tocharian A ṣtākkrukke* and its spread across the Tarim Basin.

Drawing data from the International Corpus of English (ICE) and employing 14 quantitative syntactic complexity metrics, this study investigates the relationships between British English (BrE), Canadian English (CanE), American English (AmE), Northern Ireland English (IreNE), Southern Ireland English (IreSE), Australian English (AusE) and New Zealand English (NZE). The study found that: 1) Compared with BrE, the other six varieties demonstrate a measurable trend towards structural simplification, primarily characterized by a lower proportion of subordinate clauses (DC/T, DC/C, CT/T, C/T), fewer verb and complex noun phrases (VP/T, CN/T), shorter mean length of sentence and T-unit (MLS, MLT), and simpler sentence structure (C/S). Meanwhile, they exhibit complexification features in coordination structures (CP/C, T/S) and clause length (MLC). 2) CanE, AmE, IreNE, IreSE, AusE and NZE show similar syntactic complexity patterns, which differ from BrE. Language history and language contact resulting from population mobility are important factors influencing CanE, AmE, IreNE, IreSE, AusE and NZE to present more similar syntactic complexity patterns. The insight provided by this study is that although these English varieties all belong to the Inner Circle in Kachru’s Three Circles Model, they still show differences in syntactic complexity. This finding once again shows that language is a human-driven complex adaptive system.

The process of new-dialect formation occurs when speakers of mutually intelligible varieties come into contact and create a new dialect. In this paper, I show that the process of new-dialect formation is underway in South Florida, even though the dialects coming into contact are themselves mostly contact varieties spoken by bilinguals, language learners, and the descendants thereof. This paper examines multiple vocalic variables used by 11- to 13-year-olds to explore the high variability and dialect leveling characteristic of stage two new-dialect formation. Imposition and other direct contact effects are evident within the speech of some bilingual participants, but similar patterns within the speech of monolingual English-speaking participants point to high interspeaker variability. Policing of marked features points to the direction in which leveling may shape this emerging dialect.

We focus on the dynamics of colexification, a process whereby different meanings are expressed by the same word, and its opposite, de-colexification, in language and culture contact. In multilingual environments, colexification of reference to two celestial entities – ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ – enhances intertranslatability and ease of communication between coexisting languages. The terms for ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ in two extant dialects of Tariana, the only North Arawak language in the multilingual Vaupés River Basin Linguistic Area, are a case in point. Under the influence of neighbouring majority East Tukanoan languages, the terms for ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ underwent colexification in one Tariana dialect. The recent nature of contact-induced colexification is evidenced in the ways the colexified term – which goes back to the Proto-Arawak ‘moon’ – preserves the original meaning ‘moon’ in various expressions. ‘Moon’ and not ‘sun’ is the target of colexification due to its magic powers and the frequency of its mentions, as a driving force in language change. Speakers of the other extant dialect of Tariana demonstrate the opposite process of de-colexification of ‘sun’ and ‘moon’, resulting from intensive contact with the closely related Baniwa of Içana. Communicative necessity to express matching concepts drives colexification and its demise.

This paper analyses the diminutive system of Viöl Danish, a now extinct Scandinavian dialect once spoken in the former Duchy of Schleswig (Northern Germany). We argue that the dialect had two productive diminutive constructions: a suffixal diminutive in -kǝn and a ‘gender-shift’ diminutive involving only a change in grammatical gender. While the two constructions shared the core meaning ‘small’, they had different semantic extensions and connotations. The Viöl Danish system appears to be unique among Scandinavian varieties, but has close parallels in continental West Germanic and other languages. We suggest that while the system arose partly through contact with Low German, it had developed its own dynamics in Viöl Danish as recorded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.