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It is assumed that in the case of contact languages, it is the nonverbal context of use of these languages that may be the key factor in determining the nature of each language. Contact languages, perhaps even to a greater extent than larger or more common, the so called national languages, may establish the identity of the speech communities that use them. The text presents also selected ways in which contact languages arise, adding to the types of languages known to science, such as endogenous and exogenous contact languages, a new name for the category of languages, which are isogenic contact languages.

“It has been the effort of the author to connect the study of language with the study of other branches of anthropology, for a language is best understood when the habits, customs, institutions, philosophy – the subject-matter of thought embodied in the language – are best known. The student of language should be a student of the people who speak the language; and to this end the book [paper – P.C.] has been prepared, with many hints and suggestions relating to other branches of anthropology.” Powell ([1877] 1880: vi).