Language Contact, Language Conflict treats the increasingly common phenomenon of language contact and the subsequent cultural influences that contact can entail. The collection of papers is the result of a symposium held in Duisburg in March 1992 and is divided into two sections: (a) theoretical linguistic issues and (b) case studies from throughout the world. In the foreword, Hymes admits his skepticism toward the search for universals in linguistics, cognition, and human nature when “so much of anger as of joy is in the details” and, therefore, to preserve humanity, “the complex, emergent configurations of particular languages and ways of life are what need to be understood and shared” (foreword, no page number).