This major 2001 work explores the development of creoles and other new languages.

1. Introduction; 2. The founder principle in the development of creoles; 3. The development of American Englishes: factoring contact in and the social bias out; 4. The legitimate and illegitimate offspring of English; 5. What research on the development of creoles can contribute to genetic linguistics; 6. Language contact, evolution and death: how ecology rolls the dice; 7. Past and recent population movements in Africa: their impact on its linguistic landscape; 8. Conclusions for the big picture.