HYBRID LANGUAGE FORMS IN THE UNITED STATES: THE CASE OF POLAMERICAN (POLSKO-AMERYKAŃSKI).

This article describes one of the many hybrid language varieties spoken in the United States that were formed through language contact in immigrant contexts: the Polish-and- American-English hybrid language referred to as polsko-amerykański in Polish-language sources, which I translate as Polamerican. The article traces Polamerican's history from the late 19^th century to today, and examines some of its lexical, morphophonological, and phonetic features. I argue that Polamerican demonstrates over 100 years of continued development in the United States, with many of its features dating back to the first Polish settlements, and that its hybridized form reflects the particular, historically situated immigrant experience of its speakers. Crucially, Polamerican - like other hybrid languages - is a new, locally developed and contextualized form, rather than a mixture of or alternation between two separate varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]