This is a short textbook conceived of as a meaty supplement for introductory linguistic students. It is designed to whet their appetites yielding an appreciation of the general field of languages in contact. The tome is particularly sensitive to the processes and stragegies of pidginization and creolization, and offers data based on the authors' fieldwork on Arabic pidgins and creoles of East Africa (the Ki-Nubi of Kenya and Uganda) and the southern Sudan (the city of Juba on the Nile). Theories of the origin of pidgins are discussed as well as the evolution of pidgins into creoles and the phenomenon known as decreolization. A major force of this volume is a focus on the relevance of pidginistics and creolistics for general and genetic linguistics. 2nd printing. (also see the LINCOM webshop: lincom.at)