This course provides a linguistic investigation of language contact, the interaction of two or more languages in situations of individual or community bilingualism/multilingualism. The full range of linguistic contact phenomena will be illustrated with examples from different languages, both historically and in the present day. We will discuss the outcomes of language contact - language maintenance (borrowing, code- switching, multilingualism), language shift (endangered languages, language death), and the creation of new languages (pidgins, creoles, mixed languages) - in a range of contexts, considering both the social factors in language contact and the effects of contact on the linguistic structure of the languages involved.