Contact situations are often catastrophic events and include conquerors and the conquered, oppressors and the oppressed, intermediaries, onlookers, and more. This course explores the history and social consequences of contact languages in the African Diaspora from a linguistic, political, social and cultural perspective. Focus will be on language contact resulting from plantation slavery in the Caribbean, and North and South America and how it affects standardization, identity and nationalism. This course is taught from four perspectives.