The most authoritative guide ever published to the world's pidgin and creole languages. The 3-volume Survey describes their histories and linguistic characteristics. The Atlas of Pidgins and Creoles, published at the same time, shows how 130 linguistic features are distributed among the world's languages.

VOLUME I ENGLISH-BASED AND DUTCH-BASED LANGUAGES; VOLUME II PORTUGUESE-BASED, SPANISH-BASED, AND FRENCH-BASED LANGUAGES; VOLUME III CONTACT LANGUAGES BASED ON LANGUAGES FROM AFRICA, ASIA, AUSTRALIA, AND THE AMERICAS

First comprehensive overview of pidgins and creoles, one of the most intriguing language types Written and researched by the world's leading experts The Survey describes each language's history and linguistic characteristics The Atlas of Pidgins and Creoles is published at the same time

Susanne Maria Michaelis is is currently a creolist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. Between 2008 and 2011, she held a researcher position in the APiCS project at the University of Gießen. Her early work focused on French-based Indian Ocean creoles, in particular Seychelles Creole (Temps et aspect en créole seychellois, 1993; Komplexe Syntax im Seychellen-Kreol, 1994). She is also editor of Roots of Creole Structures (Benjamins, 2008) and coeditor of the anthology Contact Languages: Critical concepts in linguistics (Routledge, 2008). Magnus Huber is Professor of English at the University of Giessen and an expert on English-based pidgins and creoles. He authored Ghanaian Pidgin English in its West African Context (Benjamins 1999), and edited Spreading the word. The issue of diffusion among the Atlantic Creoles (University of Westminster Press 1999) and Synchronic and diachronic perspectives on contact languages (Benjamins 2007). His research interests include world Englishes, historical sociolinguistics, dialectology, corpus linguistics, and historical linguistics. Philippe Maurer is a creolist working on Ibero-Romance based creoles, mainly on Papiamentu (Les modifications temporelles et modales du verbe dans le papiamento de Curaçao, 1988) and on the Gulf of Guinea Creoles (L'angolar: un créole afro-portugais parlé à São Tomé, 1995, and Principense. Grammar, texts, and vocabulary, 2009. A book on the extinct Portuguese based Creole of Batavia and Tugu (Indonesia) will appear in 2011. Martin Haspelmath is senior scientist at the Max Planck Institut for Evolutionary Anthropology and Honorary Professor at the University of Leipzig. His research interests are primarily in the area of broadly comparative and diachronic morphosyntax (e.g. Indefinite Pronouns, OUP 1997) and in language contact (Loanwords in the World's Languages, co-edited with UriTadmor, de Gruyter 2009). He is co-editor with Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, and Bernard Comrie, of The World Atlas of Language Structures (OUP 2005).

First comprehensive overview of pidgins and creoles, one of the most intriguing language types Written and researched by the world's leading experts The Survey describes each language's history and linguistic characteristics The Atlas of Pidgins and Creoles is published at the same time