borrowing

[Hilary Young]

I have been reading about contact languages and I came across the claim that
languages will borrow up to 45% of their vocabulary, which would usually be
considered heavy borrowing, or 90-100% which would be the case in many
bilingual mixtures/mixed languages (where the syntax remains that of the
‘original language’).  The claim is that no languages will borrow between
45% and 90% - that there is no continuum between extensive borrowing and
mixed languages (Bakker+Mous, 1994 'Mixed Languages', pg 5).  I was
wondering if the members of this list could contribute examples or
counterexamples of this.  Also, does anyone have a functional explanation of
why this might be?

Thanks,

Hilary Young
Rice University