Bislama is the variety of Melanesian Pidgin spoken in Vanuatu. This book describes its history and development from the 1840s to the present. It is the first in a new series of books which will aim to present case studies of language contact around the world.

Oxford Studies in Language Contact Series editors: Professor Suzanne Romaine, Merton College Oxford, and Dr Peter Mülhäusler, Linacre College, Oxford This series aims to make available a collection of research monographs which present case studies of language contact around the world. The series will consider factors which give rise to language contact and the consequences of such contact in a broad inter-disciplinary context. Given the prevalence of language contact in communities throughout the world, there are as yet insufficient studies to permit typological generalization about the subject: this series aims to fill that gap. This book presents for the first time the history and development of Bislama, a Melanesian Pidgin spoken in Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides), up to the present day. The study is based on a thoroughly detailed examination of written evidence, which sets it apart from the kind of linguistic study which relies upon speculation as to how a language develops. The book will be of interest to all pidgin and creole specialists, and all interested in language contact phenomena.

C. has to be commended for having put together, in the five historical chapters, linguistic and sociohistorical data on Bislama that tremendously increases our knowledge not only of the pidgin of Vanuatu, but of the other Melanesian pidgins as well. This is a remarkable piece of historical linguistics...one is amazed at the richness of data that the author was able to unearth.