Minority Contact Languages, Small Islands, and Linguistic Ecology

This chapter explores three concepts applicable to minority language study: what minority contact languages are; the role of the natural environment, small societies, and isolation in language development and change; and what linguistic ecology or ecolinguistics are as applied to minority languages. The languages considered are the historically and linguistically related Pitcairn and Norfolk, the languages of Pitcairn Island and Norfolk Island, respectively. A general summary is presented of more than a decade of research and thinking involving ecolinguistic relations and how such views relate to research on minority (island) contact languages and specifically contact Englishes of the Pacific. This foundation is used to explore how such minority languages can be perceived in terms of their ecological embeddedness within requisite natural and sociocultural environments.