SynopsisSeveral types of machair landforms are found in the Uists (Outer Hebrides) but the most distinctive are low altitude plains. Morphological and stratigraphical evidence suggests that both erosional and depositional processes, operating over a long period of time, have produced these sand plains and other landforms. A vast but relatively finite (partly shell-derived) sand supply was swept landwards across the gentle offshore rock platform assisted by a rising sea level to provide the initial pre-machair coastal accumulation. Phases of development can be dated using archaeological evidence, and 14C dating of offshore peat suggests that initiation probably took place before 5700 BP. Although the evidence is fragmentary, machair development appears to have consisted of long periods of stability, interrupted by episodes of major environmental disturbances. There is also evidence of coastal erosion and associated physiographic changes.

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The aim of this article is to focus on the two salient aspects of the capacity of the bilingual mind/brain, namely, its ability to maintain both language separation on one hand and language integration on the other. These two types of bilingual capacity result in language mixing, termed Code Mixing (CM) and Code Switching (CS) in socio-linguistic research. The article reveals various facets of bilingual creativity through language mixing as it manifests itself in the day-to-day verbal behaviour of a bilingual and in global advertising. The article argues that language mixing is essentially an ‘optimizing’ strategy which renders a wide variety of new meaning which the separate linguistic systems are incapable of rendering by themselves.

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