ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the multitude of contact varieties spoken in Eastern Polynesia, highlighting how the region’s high linguistic diversity and manifold colonial histories have shaped a complex network of language contact. Through a description of the unique histories of contact in Rapa Nui, French Polynesia, Hawai‘i, and New Zealand; this chapter focuses on the social and linguistic processes that have formed the three primary types of contact languages found in Eastern Polynesia: creoles, mixed languages, and regional varieties of English, French and Spanish.
