- See also: List of language families
A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. Major language families By number of native speakers This is a list of the top ten families with wide recognition as phylogenetic units in terms of numbers of native speakers A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Genetic, in Linguistics, means due to descent from a common ancestor language rather than borrowing at some time in the past between languages that were not necessarily descended A proto-language is a Language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a Language family.
As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics. Taxonomy, sometimes alpha taxonomy, is the Science of finding describing and categorising Organisms thus giving rise to taxonomic groups or taxa An accurately identified family is a phylogenetic unit; that is, all its members derive from a common ancestor, and all attested descendants of that ancestor are included in the family. Most of the world's languages are known to belong to families; for many others, however, family relationships are not known or only tentatively proposed. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them
The concept of language families is based on the assumption that over time languages gradually diverge into dialects and then into new languages. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of However, linguistic ancestry is less clear-cut than biological ancestry, because there are extreme cases of languages mixing due to language contact in conquest or trade, whereas biological species normally don't interbreed. Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact In the formation of creole languages and other types of mixed languages, there may be no one ancestor of a given language. A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable Language that originates seemingly as a nativized Pidgin. A mixed language is a Language that arises through the fusion of two source languages normally in situations of thorough Bilingualism. In addition, many sign languages develop in isolation and may have no relatives at all. A sign language (also signed language) is a Language which instead of acoustically conveyed Sound patterns uses visually transmitted sign patterns However, these cases are relatively rare and most languages can be unambiguously classified.
The common ancestor of a language family is seldom known directly, since most languages have a relatively short recorded history. However, it is possible to recover many features of a proto-language by applying the comparative method—a reconstructive procedure worked out by 19th century linguist August Schleicher. The comparative method (in Comparative linguistics) is a technique used by linguists to demonstrate genetic relationships between Languages It aims to prove The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar August Schleicher ( February 19, 1821 – December 6, 1868) was a German linguist born in Meiningen ( Duchy This can demonstrate the validity of many of the proposed families in the list of language families. Major language families By number of native speakers This is a list of the top ten families with wide recognition as phylogenetic units in terms of numbers of native speakers For example, the reconstructible common ancestor of the Indo-European language family is called Proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European is not attested by written records, since it was spoken before the invention of writing.
Sometimes, though, a proto-language can be identified with an historically known language. A proto-language is a Language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a Language family. For instance, dialects of Old Norse are the proto-language of Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Faroese and Icelandic. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age Norwegian ( norsk) is a North Germanic Language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Faroese ( føroyskt ˈføːɹɪst or) often also spelled Faeroese (cf Icelandic ( is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. Likewise, the Appendix Probi depicts Proto-Romance, a language almost unattested due to the prestige of Classical Latin, a highly stylised literary dialect not representative of the speech of ordinary people. The Appendix Probi is a text of the Third century AD by Valerius Probus Classical Latin is the form of the Latin language used by the ancient Romans in what is usually regarded as "classical" Latin literature.
Language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family, because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. A phylogenetic tree, also called an evolutionary tree, is a tree showing the Evolutionary relationships among various biological Species or other However, the term family is not restricted to any one level of this "tree". The Germanic family, for example, is a branch of the Indo-European family. The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. Some taxonomists restrict the term family to a certain level, but there is little consensus in how to do so. Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification The word comes from the Greek, taxis (meaning 'order' 'arrangement' and, nomos Those who affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, and groups into complexes. The terms superfamily, phylum, and stock are applied to proposed groupings of language families whose status as phylogenetic units is generally considered to be unsubstantiated by accepted historical linguistic methods.
Languages that cannot be reliably classified into any family are known as isolates. A language isolate, in the absolute sense is a Natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic" relationship with other living languages that is A language isolated in its own branch within a family, such as Greek within Indo-European, is often also called an isolate; but the meaning of isolate in such cases is usually clarified. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly For instance, Greek might be referred to as an Indo-European isolate. The isolation of modern Greek, however, is not typical of its relationship to other languages at other times in its history. Several Greek dialects evolved out of the larger Indo-European language group; and later, Greek words influenced many other languages. By contrast, the Basque language is a living modern language and a near perfect isolate. Basque ( native name: euskara) is the Language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain The history of its lexical, phonetic, and syntactic structures is not known, and is not easily associated to other languages, though it has been influenced by Romance languages in the region, like Castilian Spanish, Occitan, and French. Occitan ( IPA BrE: /ˈɒksɪtn/ AmE: /ˈɑksəˌtɑn/ known also as Lenga d'òc or Langue d'oc (native name occitan French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people
Connections among and between language families are often used by anthropologists, in combination with DNA evidence and fossil evidence, to help reconstruct pre-historic migrations of peoples, and other pre-historic events, such as the spread of agriculture. Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of Deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) is a Nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known FOSSIL is a standard protocol for allowing serial communication for Telecommunications programs under the DOS Operating system. Unfortunately, anthropologists seldom evaluate the likelihood that a proposal constitutes a valid language family, and their conclusions are sometimes based on speculative proposals such as Khoisan which may turn out to be spurious. The Khoisan languages (also Khoesaan languages) are the indigenous languages of southern and eastern Africa; in southern Africa their speakers are the Khoi
The Linguist List is now working on a National Science Foundation funded project entitled Multitree, to build a database of all hypothesized language relationships, with a full searchable bibliography for each. The LINGUIST List is the major on-line resource for the academic field of Linguistics.
See also
Bibliography
- Boas, Franz. An international auxiliary language (sometimes abbreviated as IAL or auxlang) or interlanguage is a Language meant for communication between people from A constructed or artificial language known colloquially or informally as a conlang is a Language whose Phonology, Grammar An endangered language is a Language that it is at risk of falling out of use generally because it has few surviving speakers According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken ISO 639-5 (ISO 639-52008 titled "Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 5 Alpha-3 code for Language families and groups" is an international-standard Language families are groups of languages that share common features Major language families By number of native speakers This is a list of the top ten families with wide recognition as phylogenetic units in terms of numbers of native speakers Major language families By number of native speakers This is a list of the top ten families with wide recognition as phylogenetic units in terms of numbers of native speakers This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use A proto-language is a Language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a Language family. (1911). Handbook of American Indian languages (Vol. 1). Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 40. Washington: Government Print Office (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology).
- Boas, Franz. (1922). Handbook of American Indian languages (Vol. 2). Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 40. Washington: Government Print Office (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology).
- Boas, Franz. (1933). Handbook of American Indian languages (Vol. 3). Native American legal materials collection, title 1227. Glückstadt: J. J. Augustin.
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
- Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne (Eds. ). (1979). The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press.
- Goddard, Ives (Ed. ). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed. ) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C. : Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-048774-9.
- Goddard, Ives. (1999). Native languages and language families of North America (rev. and enlarged ed. with additions and corrections). [Map]. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press (Smithsonian Institute). (Updated version of the map in Goddard 1996). ISBN 0-8032-9271-6.
- Gordon, Raymond G. , Jr. (Ed. ). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed. ). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).
- Greenberg, Joseph H. (1966). The Languages of Africa (2nd ed. ). Bloomington: Indiana University.
- Harrison, K. David. (2007) When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. New York and London: Oxford University Press.
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
- Ross, Malcom. (2005). Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages. In: Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson, eds, Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples (PDF)
- Ruhlen, Merritt. Andrew Kenneth Pawley (born 1941 is Head of the Department of Linguistics at the Australian National University, Australia. (1987). A guide to the world's languages. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Sturtevant, William C. (Ed. ). (1978-present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, D. C. : Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20 not yet published).
- Voegelin, C. F. ; & Voegelin, F. M. (1977). Classification and index of the world's languages. New York: Elsevier.
External links
- Ethnologue
- The Language Families of the World, C. George Boeree, Shippensburg University
- The Multitree Project
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