Language family
A language family is a group of
languages related through descent
from a common ancestor, called the
proto-language of that family. The
term family is a metaphor borrowed
from biology, with the tree model used
in historical linguistics analogous to a
family tree, or to phylogenetic trees of
taxa used in evolutionary taxonomy. 2005 map of the contemporary distribution of the world's primary
Linguists thus describe the daughter language families
languages within a language family as
being genetically related.[1] The
divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation,
with different regional dialects of the proto-language undergoing different language changes and thus
becoming distinct languages over time.[2]
One well-known example of a language family is the Romance languages, including Spanish, French,
Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, and many others, all of which are descended from Vulgar
Latin.[note 1][3] The Romance family itself is part of the larger Indo-European family, which includes
many other languages native to Europe and South Asia, all believed to have descended from a common
ancestor known as Proto-Indo-European.
A language family is usually said to contain at least two languages, although language isolates —
languages that are not related to any other language — are occasionally referred to as families that
contain one language. Inversely, there is no upper bound to the number of languages a family can contain.
Some families, such as the Austronesian languages, contain over 1000.[4]
Language families can be identified from shared characteristics amongst languages. Sound changes are
one of the strongest pieces of evidence that can be used to identify a genetic relationship because of their
predictable and consistent nature, and through the comparative method can be used to reconstruct proto-
languages. However, languages can also change through language contact which can falsely suggest
genetic relationships. For example, the Mongolic, Tungusic, and Turkic languages share a great deal of
similarities that lead several scholars to believe they were related. These supposed relationships were
later discovered to be derived through language contact and thus they are not truly related.[5] Eventually
though, high amounts of language contact and inconsistent changes will render it essentially impossible
to derive any more relationships; even the oldest demonstrable language family, Afroasiatic, is far
younger than language itself.[6]
Major language families
Estimates of the number of language families in the world may vary widely. According to Ethnologue
there are 7,151 living human languages distributed in 142 different language families.[7][8] Lyle Campbell
(2019) identifies a total of 406 independent language families, including isolates.[9]
Ethnologue 27 (2024) lists the following families that contain at least 1% of the 7,164 known languages
in the world:[10]
1. Niger–Congo (1,552 languages)
2. Austronesian (1,256 languages)
3. Trans–New Guinea (481 languages)
4. Sino-Tibetan (458 languages)
5. Indo-European (454 languages)
6. Australian (384 languages)
7. Afroasiatic (382 languages)
8. Nilo-Saharan (210 languages)
9. Otomanguean (179 languages)
10. Austroasiatic (167 languages)
11. Kra-Dai (91 languages)
12. Dravidian (85 languages)
Glottolog 5.0 (2024) lists the following as the largest families, of 7,788 languages (other than sign
languages, pidgins, and unclassifiable languages):[11]
1. Atlantic–Congo (1,410 languages)
2. Austronesian (1,274 languages)
3. Indo-European (586 languages)
4. Sino-Tibetan (514 languages)
5. Afroasiatic (381 languages)
6. Nuclear Trans–New Guinea (316 languages)
7. Pama–Nyungan (250 languages)
8. Otomanguean (181 languages)
9. Austroasiatic (158 languages)
10. Tai–Kadai (95 languages)
11. Dravidian (82 languages)
12. Arawakan (77 languages)
Language counts can vary significantly depending on what is considered a dialect; for example Lyle
Campbell counts only 27 Otomanguean languages, although he, Ethnologue and Glottolog also disagree
as to which languages belong in the family.
The largest five language families in terms of number of speakers (Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Afro-
Asiatic, Niger-Congo and Austronesian) make up five-sixths (almost 83.3%) of the world’s population.[8]
Genetic relationship
Two languages have a genetic relationship, and belong to the same language family, if both are descended
from a common ancestor through the process of language change, or one is descended from the other. The
term and the process of language evolution are independent of, and not reliant on, the terminology,
understanding, and theories related to genetics in the biological sense, so, to avoid confusion, some
linguists prefer the term genealogical relationship.[12][13]: 184
There is a remarkably similar pattern shown by the linguistic tree and the genetic tree of human
ancestry[14] that was verified statistically.[15] Languages interpreted in terms of the putative phylogenetic
tree of human languages are transmitted to a great extent vertically (by ancestry) as opposed to
horizontally (by spatial diffusion).[16]
Establishment
In some cases, the shared derivation of a group of related languages from a common ancestor is directly
attested in the historical record. For example, this is the case for the Romance language family, wherein
Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and French are all descended from Latin, as well as for the North
Germanic language family, including Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic, which have shared
descent from Ancient Norse. Latin and ancient Norse are both attested in written records, as are many
intermediate stages between those ancestral languages and their modern descendants.
In other cases, genetic relationships between languages are not directly attested. For instance, the
Romance languages and the North Germanic languages are also related to each other, being subfamilies
of the Indo-European language family, since both Latin and Old Norse are believed to be descended from
an even more ancient language, Proto-Indo-European; however, no direct evidence of Proto-Indo-
European or its divergence into its descendant languages survives. In cases such as these, genetic
relationships are established through use of the comparative method of linguistic analysis.
In order to test the hypothesis that two languages are related, the comparative method begins with the
collection of pairs of words that are hypothesized to be cognates: i.e., words in related languages that are
derived from the same word in the shared ancestral language. Pairs of words that have similar
pronunciations and meanings in the two languages are often good candidates for hypothetical cognates.
The researcher must rule out the possibility that the two words are similar merely due to chance, or due to
one having borrowed the words from the other (or from a language related to the other). Chance
resemblance is ruled out by the existence of large collections of pairs of words between the two
languages showing similar patterns of phonetic similarity. Once coincidental similarity and borrowing
have been eliminated as possible explanations for similarities in sound and meaning of words, the
remaining explanation is common origin: it is inferred that the similarities occurred due to descent from a
common ancestor, and the words are actually cognates, implying the languages must be related.[17]
Linguistic interference and borrowing
When languages are in contact with one another, either of them may influence the other through linguistic
interference such as borrowing. For example, French has influenced English, Arabic has influenced
Persian, Sanskrit has influenced Tamil, and Chinese has influenced Japanese in this way. However, such
influence does not constitute (and is not a measure of) a genetic relationship between the languages
concerned. Linguistic interference can occur between languages that are genetically closely related,
between languages that are distantly related (like English and French, which are distantly related Indo-
European languages) and between languages that have no genetic relationship.
Complications
Some exceptions to the simple genetic relationship model of languages include language isolates and
mixed, pidgin and creole languages.
Mixed languages, pidgins and creole languages constitute special genetic types of languages. They do not
descend linearly or directly from a single language and have no single ancestor.
Isolates are languages that cannot be proven to be genealogically related to any other modern language.
As a corollary, every language isolate also forms its own language family — a genetic family which
happens to consist of just one language. One often cited example is Basque, which forms a language
family on its own; but there are many other examples outside Europe. On the global scale, the site
Glottolog counts a total of 423 language families in the world, including 184 isolates.[18]
Monogenesis
One controversial theory concerning the genetic relationships among languages is monogenesis, the idea
that all known languages, with the exceptions of creoles, pidgins and sign languages, are descendant from
a single ancestral language.[19] If that is true, it would mean all languages (other than pidgins, creoles,
and sign languages) are genetically related, but in many cases, the relationships may be too remote to be
detectable. Alternative explanations for some basic observed commonalities between languages include
developmental theories, related to the biological development of the capacity for language as the child
grows from newborn.
Structure of a family
A language family is a monophyletic unit; all its members derive from a common ancestor, and all
descendants of that ancestor are included in the family. Thus, the term family is analogous to the
biological term clade. Language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, sometimes
referred to as "branches" or "subfamilies" of the family; for instance, the Germanic languages are a
subfamily of the Indo-European family. Subfamilies share a more recent common ancestor than the
common ancestor of the larger family; Proto-Germanic, the common ancestor of the Germanic subfamily,
was itself a descendant of Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Indo-European family.
Within a large family, subfamilies can be identified through "shared innovations": members of a
subfamily will share features that represent retentions from their more recent common ancestor, but were
not present in the overall proto-language of the larger family.
Some taxonomists restrict the term family to a certain level, but there is little consensus on how to do so.
Those who affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, and groups into complexes. A top-level
(i.e., the largest) family is often called a phylum or stock. The closer the branches are to each other, the
more closely the languages will be related. This means if a branch of a proto-language is four branches
down and there is also a sister language to that fourth branch, then the two sister languages are more
closely related to each other than to that common ancestral proto-language.
The term macrofamily or superfamily is sometimes applied to proposed groupings of language families
whose status as phylogenetic units is generally considered to be unsubstantiated by accepted historical
linguistic methods.
Dialect continua
Some close-knit language families, and many branches within larger families, take the form of dialect
continua in which there are no clear-cut borders that make it possible to unequivocally identify, define, or
count individual languages within the family. However, when the differences between the speech of
different regions at the extremes of the continuum are so great that there is no mutual intelligibility
between them, as occurs in Arabic, the continuum cannot meaningfully be seen as a single language.
A speech variety may also be considered either a language or a dialect depending on social or political
considerations. Thus, different sources, especially over time, can give wildly different numbers of
languages within a certain family. Classifications of the Japonic family, for example, range from one
language (a language isolate with dialects) to nearly twenty—until the classification of Ryukyuan as
separate languages within a Japonic language family rather than dialects of Japanese, the Japanese
language itself was considered a language isolate and therefore the only language in its family.
Isolates
Most of the world's languages are known to be related to others. Those that have no known relatives (or
for which family relationships are only tentatively proposed) are called language isolates, essentially
language families consisting of a single language. There are an estimated 129 language isolates known
today.[20] An example is Basque. In general, it is assumed that language isolates have relatives or had
relatives at some point in their history but at a time depth too great for linguistic comparison to recover
them.
A language isolate is classified based on the fact that enough is known about the isolate to compare it
genetically to other languages but no common ancestry or relationship is found with any other known
language.[20]
A language isolated in its own branch within a family, such as Albanian and Armenian within Indo-
European, is often also called an isolate, but the meaning of the word "isolate" in such cases is usually
clarified with a modifier. For instance, Albanian and Armenian may be referred to as an "Indo-European
isolate". By contrast, so far as is known, the Basque language is an absolute isolate: it has not been shown
to be related to any other modern language despite numerous attempts. A language may be said to be an
isolate currently but not historically if related but now extinct relatives are attested. The Aquitanian
language, spoken in Roman times, may have been an ancestor of Basque, but it could also have been a
sister language to the ancestor of Basque. In the latter case, Basque and Aquitanian would form a small
family together. Ancestors are not considered to be distinct members of a family.
Proto-languages
A proto-language can be thought of as a mother language (not to be confused with a mother tongue[21])
being the root from which all languages in the family stem. 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. This can demonstrate
the validity of many of the proposed families in the list of language families. 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 and so is conjectured to have been spoken before
the invention of writing.
Visual representation
A common visual representation of a language family
is given by a genetic language tree. The tree model is
sometimes termed a dendrogram or phylogeny. The
family tree shows the relationship of the languages
within a family, much as a family tree of an individual
shows their relationship with their relatives. There are
criticisms to the family tree model. Critics focus
mainly on the claim that the internal structure of the
trees is subject to variation based on the criteria of
classification.[22] Even among those who support the
family tree model, there are debates over which
An example of a language tree, containing the
languages should be included in a language family.
Mayan languages
For example, within the dubious Altaic language
family, there are debates over whether the Japonic and
Koreanic languages should be included or not.[23]
The wave model has been proposed as an alternative to the tree model.[13] The wave model uses
isoglosses to group language varieties; unlike in the tree model, these groups can overlap. While the tree
model implies a lack of contact between languages after derivation from an ancestral form, the wave
model emphasizes the relationship between languages that remain in contact, which is more realistic.[13]
Historical glottometry is an application of the wave model, meant to identify and evaluate genetic
relations in linguistic linkages.[13][24]
Other classifications of languages
Sprachbund
A sprachbund is a geographic area having several languages that feature common linguistic structures.
The similarities between those languages are caused by language contact, not by chance or common
origin, and are not recognized as criteria that define a language family. An example of a sprachbund
would be the Indian subcontinent.[25]
Shared innovations, acquired by borrowing or other means, are not considered genetic and have no
bearing with the language family concept. It has been asserted, for example, that many of the more
striking features shared by Italic languages (Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, etc.) might well be "areal features".
However, very similar-looking alterations in the systems of long vowels in the West Germanic languages
greatly postdate any possible notion of a proto-language innovation (and cannot readily be regarded as
"areal", either, since English and continental West Germanic were not a linguistic area). In a similar vein,
there are many similar unique innovations in Germanic, Baltic and Slavic that are far more likely to be
areal features than traceable to a common proto-language. But legitimate uncertainty about whether
shared innovations are areal features, coincidence, or inheritance from a common ancestor, leads to
disagreement over the proper subdivisions of any large language family.
Contact languages
The concept of language families is based on the historical observation that languages develop dialects,
which over time may diverge into distinct languages. However, linguistic ancestry is less clear-cut than
familiar biological ancestry, in which species do not crossbreed.[26] It is more like the evolution of
microbes, with extensive lateral gene transfer. Quite distantly related languages may affect each other
through language contact, which in extreme cases may lead to languages with no single ancestor, whether
they be creoles or mixed languages. In addition, a number of sign languages have developed in isolation
and appear to have no relatives at all. Nonetheless, such cases are relatively rare and most well-attested
languages can be unambiguously classified as belonging to one language family or another, even if this
family's relation to other families is not known.
Language contact can lead to the development of new languages from the mixture of two or more
languages for the purposes of interactions between two groups who speak different languages. Languages
that arise in order for two groups to communicate with each other to engage in commercial trade or that
appeared as a result of colonialism are called pidgin. Pidgins are an example of linguistic and cultural
expansion caused by language contact. However, language contact can also lead to cultural divisions. In
some cases, two different language speaking groups can feel territorial towards their language and do not
want any changes to be made to it. This causes language boundaries and groups in contact are not willing
to make any compromises to accommodate the other language.[27]
See also
Comparative linguistics
Constructed language
Endangered language
Extinct language
Language death
Language isolate
List of revived languages
Global language system
ISO 639-5
Linguist List
List of language families
List of languages by number of native speakers
Origin of language
Proto-language
Proto-Human language
Sprachbund
Tree model
Unclassified language
Father Tongue hypothesis
Farming/language dispersal hypothesis
Notes
1. Vernacular Latin, as opposed to the Classical Latin used as a literary language.
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Further reading
Boas, Franz (1911). Handbook of American Indian languages. Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bulletin 40. Vol. 1. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American
Ethnology. ISBN 0-8032-5017-7.
Boas, Franz. (1922). Handbook of American Indian languages (Vol. 2). Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bulletin 40. Washington, D.C.: 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 Institution). (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: Ethnologue: Languages
of the World (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, Malcolm. (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan
languages (http://rspas.anu.edu.au/linguistics/mdr/Papuan%20Pasts%20paper.pdf)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20040608222723/http://rspas.anu.edu.au/linguistics/
mdr/Papuan%20Pasts%20paper.pdf) 8 June 2004 at the Wayback Machine". 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. (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
Linguistic maps (http://www.muturzikin.com/countries.htm) (from Muturzikin)
Ethnologue (https://www.ethnologue.com/)
The Multitree Project (http://multitree.org/)
Lenguas del mundo (http://www.proel.org/index.php?pagina=mundo) (World Languages)
Comparative Swadesh list tables of various language families (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/
Appendix:Swadesh_lists) (from Wiktionary)
Most similar languages (http://www.ezglot.com/most-similar-languages.php)
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