Introduction

Estimates vary as to how many languages are spoken in the world today. Most reference books give a figure of around 6,000 (e.g. Crystal, 1987; Baker and Prys Jones, 1998). This is in fact a conservative estimate, as many parts of the world have been insufficiently studied from a linguistic point of view. We simply do not know exactly what languages are spoken in some places. What we do know, however, is that there are fewer than 200 countries-that politico-geographic unit to which most of us belong-in the world. It is inevitable perhaps that an enormous amount of ‘language contact’ takes place.