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Long-range Comparative Linguistics
A macrofamily (also called a superfamily or superphylum) is a term often used in historical linguistics to refer to a hypothetical higher order grouping of languages. Metonymically, the term became associated with the practice of trying to group together various languages and language families (including isolates) in a larger scale classification. Campbell, Lyle and Mixco, Mauricio J. (2007), ''A Glossary of Historical Linguistics'', University of Utah Press/Edinburgh University Press. However, some scholars Campbell, Lyle (2004), ''Historical Linguistics: An Introduction'', Edinburgh University Press. view this term as superfluous if not outright redundant as there is no real tangible linguistic divide the same way there is between a linguistic isolate and a language family proper. Lyle Campbell, professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, had famously said that he is preferring to use the terms "language family" for those classifications for which there is consensus an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Linguistics
Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical linguistics involves several key areas of study, including the reconstruction of ancestral languages, the classification of languages into families, ( comparative linguistics) and the analysis of the cultural and social influences on language development. This field is grounded in the uniformitarian principle, which posits that the processes of language change observed today were also at work in the past, unless there is clear evidence to suggest otherwise. Historical linguists aim to describe and explain changes in individual languages, explore the history of speech communities, and study the origins and meanings of words ( etymology). Development Modern historical linguistics dates to the late 18th century, having originally grown o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Borean Languages
Borean (also Boreal or Boralean) is a hypothetical (i.e. proposed) linguistic macrofamily that encompasses almost all language families worldwide except those native to the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and the Andaman Islands. It is considered a fringe theory within mainstream linguistics, relying heavily on the discredited mass comparison method to derive genetic relationships. Borean proposes that the various languages spoken in Eurasia and adjacent regions have a genealogical relationship, and ultimately descend from languages spoken during the Upper Paleolithic in the millennia following the Last Glacial Maximum. The name ''Borean'' is based on the Greek βορέας, and means "northern". This reflects the fact that the group is held to include most language families that are native to the northern hemisphere. Two distinct models of Borean exist: that of Harold C. Fleming and that of Sergei Starostin. Fleming's model The concept is due to Harold C. Fleming (1987), who pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classification Of Indigenous Languages Of The Americas
This is a list of different language classification proposals developed for the Indigenous languages of the Americas or Amerindian languages. The article is divided into North, Central, and South America sections; however, the classifications do not correspond to these divisions. North America ''Glottolog'' 4.1 (2019) ''Glottolog'' 4.1 (2019) recognizes 42 independent families and 31 isolates in North America (73 total). The vast majority are (or were) spoken in the United States, with 26 families and 26 isolates (52 total). ;North American languages families proposed in ''Glottolog'' 4.1 ;Families (42) # Otomanguean (180) #Arawakan (78) #Uto-Aztecan (69) #Algic (46) # Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit (45) # Mayan (33) # Chibchan (27) # Salishan (25) # Mixe-Zoque (19) # Siouan (18) # Eskimo–Aleut (12) # Totonacan (12) # Cochimi-Yuman (11) #Iroquoian (11) # Miwok-Costanoan (11) #Kiowa-Tanoan (8) #Muskogean (7) # Pomoan (7) # Chumashan (6) # Wakashan (6) # Caddoan (5) # Misumalpan (5 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classification Of Southeast Asian Languages
There have been various classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages (see the articles for the respective language families). Language families The five established major language families are: * Austroasiatic * Austronesian * Hmong–Mien * Kra–Dai * Sino-Tibetan Isolates and small families A number of language groups in Arunachal Pradesh traditionally considered to be Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) may in fact constitute independent language families or isolates (Roger Blench 2011). (See Language isolates and independent language families in Arunachal.) * Potential language isolates and independent language families in Arunachal: Digaro, Hrusish (including the Miji languagesBlench, Roger. 2015''The Mijiic languages: distribution, dialects, wordlist and classification'' m.s.), Midzu, Puroik, Siangic, and Kho-Bwa * The two Andamanese language families: Great Andamanese and Ongan * Language isolates and languages with isolate substrata of Southeast Asia: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Father Tongue Hypothesis
The father tongue hypothesis proposes the idea that humans tend to speak their father's language. The hypothesis is based on a 1997 proposal that linguistic affiliation correlates more closely with Y-chromosomal variation than with mitochondrial DNA variation. The initial work was performed on African and European samples by a team of population geneticists, led by Laurent Excoffier. On the basis of these, and similar findings by other geneticists, the hypothesis was elaborated by historical linguist George van Driem in 2010 that the teaching by a mother of her spouse's tongue to her children is a mechanism by which language has preferentially been spread over time. Focusing on prehistoric language shift in already settled areas, examples worldwide show that as little as 10–20% of prehistoric male immigration can (but need not) cause a language switch, indicating an elite imposition such as may have happened with the appearance of the first farmers or metalworkers in the Neoli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Proposed Language Families
The following is a list of proposed language families, which connect established families into larger genetic groups ( macro-families). Support for these proposals vary from case to case. For example, the Dené–Yeniseian languages are a recent proposal which has been generally well received, whereas reconstructions of the Proto-World language are often viewed as fringe science. Proposals which are themselves based on other proposals have the likelihood of their parts noted in parentheses. Under considerations , Paul K. Benedict (initiator, later rejected), Sergei Starostin, John Bengtson , , - , John Bengtson (initiator) , , - , Austro-Tai , , Paul Benedict (initiator, also including Japanese), Ostapirat, Smith , Thurgood , Sagart , , - , Aztec–Tanoan , , , , , , - , Chukotko-Kamchatkan–Amuric , , , , , , - , Dené–Yeniseian , , Alfredo Trombetti (initiator), Merritt Ruhlen, Edward Vajda, Michael Krauss, Jeff Leer, James Kari, Heinrich Werner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Language Families
This article is a list of language families. This list only includes primary language families that are accepted by the current academic consensus in the field of linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...; for language families that are not accepted by the current academic consensus in the field of linguistics, see the article " List of proposed language families". List of language families Spoken language families File:Primary Human Languages Improved Version.png, Map of the main language families of the world File:Africa ethnic groups 1996.jpg, The language families of Africa File:Austronesia Map.jpg, Map of the Austronesian languages File:Dravidian subgroups.png, Map of major Dravidian languages File:Indo-European Language Family Branches in Eurasia.png, Dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. Linguists thus describe the ''daughter languages'' within a language family as being ''genetically related''. 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. 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.Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.)''Ethnologue: Languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Diakonoff
Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff (occasionally spelled Diakonov, ; 12 January 1915 – 2 May 1999) was a Russian historian, linguist, and translator and a renowned expert on the Ancient Near East and its languages. His brothers were also distinguished historians. Life and career Diakonoff was brought up in Norway. He graduated from Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University) in 1938. In the same year he joined the staff of the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). In 1949, he published a comprehensive study of Assyria, followed in 1956 by a monograph on Media. Later on, he teamed up with the linguist Sergei Starostin to produce authoritative studies of the Caucasian, Afroasiatic, and Hurro-Urartian languages. Diakonoff was honored in 2003 with a festschrift volume published in his memory, edited by Lionel Bender, Gábor Takács, and David Appleyard. In addition to articles on Afro-Asiatic languages, it contains a five-page list of his p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afroasiatic Languages
The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara and Sahel. Over 500 million people are native speakers of an Afroasiatic language, constituting the fourth-largest language family after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo. Most linguists divide the family into six branches: Berber (Amazigh), Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic, and Semitic. The vast majority of Afroasiatic languages are considered indigenous to the African continent, including all those not belonging to the Semitic branch (which originated in West Asia). The five most spoken languages are; Arabic (of all varieties) which is by far the most widely spoken within the family, with around 411 million native speakers concentrated primarily in West Asia and North Africa, the Chadic Hausa language w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ural-Altaic
Ural-Altaic, Uralo-Altaic, Uraltaic, or Turanic is a linguistic convergence zone and abandoned language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and the Altaic (in the narrow sense) languages. It is now generally agreed that even the Altaic languages do not share a common descent: the similarities between Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic are better explained by diffusion and borrowing. Just as in Altaic, the internal structure of the Uralic family has been debated since the family was first proposed. Doubts about the validity of most or all of the proposed higher-order Uralic branchings (grouping the nine undisputed families) are becoming more common. The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone. Indeed, "Ural-Altaic" may be preferable to "Altaic" in this sense. For example, J. Janhunen states that "speaking of 'Altaic' instead of 'Ural-Altaic' is a misconception, for there are no areal or typological features that are s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
