Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Joel Sherzer -- 1. Play Languages: Implications for (Socio) Linguistics -- 2. Secret Play Languages in Saramaka: Linguistic Disguise in a Caribbean Creole -- 3. Some Zinacanteco Joking Strategies -- 4. Children's Traditional Speech Play and Child Language -- 5. A Developmental Structural Account of Riddles -- 6. Verbal Dueling in Chamula -- 7. How to Remember Numbers in Japanese -- 8. Saying Is Inventing: Gnomic Expressions in Molloy -- 9. Directions for Future Research -- 10. Bibliographic Survey of the Literature on Speech Play and Related Subjects -- Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index