New research expands the linguistic understanding of dialect contact in specific communities and individualsDialect contact occurs whenever speakers of mutually intelligible language varieties interact. Many linguists are interested in the outcome of such contact—how it leads people and languages to vary and change, and what such patterns can reveal about language, mind, and society. Dialect contact can thus be approached as an individual-level or a community-level...

This novel opens in 1805, during the Napoleonic Wars between England and France. A retired sailor, Captain Acton, reminisces about his time at sea now he lives on shore and wonders about a ship seen burning at sea the previous night. But there is one more voyage for the Captain, this time taking his daughter Lucy. As all sailors know, a woman on board brings bad luck.