I think it's interesting that the section on multilingual crews didn't really touch on creoles or contact languages. An interesting comparison is Pitcairnese, w

I think it's interesting that the section on multilingual crews didn't really touch on creoles or contact languages. An interesting comparison is Pitcairnese, which resulted from mutineers of the Bounty and some Tahitians. In the resulting creole there are features that are sometimes traceable to single crew members with a specific language background. I think another aspect which is somewhat ignored is that presumably space-faring humans could take libraries of audio and video content with them, which was not an option for Polynesians spreading to new islands. And I think we just don't know much about the actual rate of language change in environments which can include recorded spoken speech. If Chaucer had recorded an audiobook perhaps modern english speakers would be comfortable with middle english.