Is creolization an abrupt or a gradual process? In this volume leading scholars provide both comparative and case studies that outline their working definitions and their views on the particular or average time depth, or key processes necessary for contact language formation, providing a state-of-the art assessment of the theory of gradual creolization. Authors scrutinize the roles of nativization, demography, initial settlement, language composition, koineization, adstrate presence, bilingualism, as well as a variety of structural features in pidgins, creoles and other contact languages world-wide. From Pacific to Atlantic, French-, English-, Dutch-, Portuguese- and other-lexified restructured varieties are covered. Syntactic, lexical, phonological, historical and socio-cultural studies are grouped into Part 1, Linguistic analysis, and Part 2, Social reconstruction. This volume provides the multi-faceted groundwork and expert discussion that will help formulate further a model of gradual creolization, as called for by the work of the late Jacques Arends.