geolinguistics Geolinguistics has been identified by some as being a branch of linguistics and by others as being an offshoot of language geography which is further defined in terms of being a branch of human geography. When seen as a branch of linguistics, geoli ...

, areal features are elements shared by languages or

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

s in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...

, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to lingual-genealogically determined similarity within the same

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...

. Features may diffuse from one dominant language to neighbouring languages (see "

sprachbund A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lan ...

"). Genetic relationships are represented in the family tree model of language change, and areal relationships are represented in the wave model.

Characteristics

Resemblances between two or more languages (whether in typology or in vocabulary) have been observed to result from several mechanisms, including lingual genealogical relation (descent from a common ancestor language, not principally related to biological genetics) ; borrowing between languages ; retention of features when a population adopts a new language ; and chance coincidence. When little or no direct documentation of ancestor languages is available, determining whether the similarity is genetic or merely areal can be difficult. Edward Sapir notably used evidence of contact and diffusion as a negative tool for genetic reconstruction, treating it as a subject in its own right only at the end of his career (e.g., for the influence of

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...

on Tocharian).Drechsel, Emanuel J. (1988). "Wilhelm von Humboldt and Edward Sapir: analogies and homologies in their linguistic thoughts", in p. 254.

Major models

William Labov in 2007 reconciled the tree and wave models in a general framework based on differences between children and adults in their language learning ability. Adults do not preserve structural features with sufficient regularity to establish a norm in their community, but children do. Linguistic features are diffused across an area by contacts among adults. Languages branch into dialects and thence into related languages through small changes in the course of children's learning processes which accumulate over generations, and when speech communities do not communicate (frequently) with each other, these cumulative changes diverge. Diffusion of areal features for the most part hinges on low-level phonetic shifts, whereas tree-model transmission includes in addition structural factors such as "grammatical conditioning, word boundaries, and the systemic relations that drive chain shifting".

Sprachbund

In some areas with high linguistic diversity, a number of areal features have spread across a set of languages to form a

(also known as a linguistic area, convergence area or diffusion area). Some examples are the Balkan sprachbund, the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, and the languages of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...

Examples

Phonetics and phonology

* The spread of the

guttural R Guttural R is the phenomenon whereby a rhotic consonant (an "R-like" sound) is produced in the back of the vocal tract (usually with the uvula) rather than in the front portion thereof and thus as a guttural consonant. Speakers of languages w ...

from either German or French to several Northern European languages. * Presence of (

dark L The voiced alveolar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and th ...

), usually contrasting with palatalized in Slavic, Baltic and Turkic languages of Central Asia. * Possibly the Satem sound change. * Development of a three- tone system with no tones in words ending in -''p'', -''t'', -''k'', followed by a

tone split The Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area is a sprachbund including languages of the Sino-Tibetan, Hmong–Mien (or Miao–Yao), Kra–Dai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic families spoken in an area stretching from Thailand to China. Neighbou ...

, and many other phonetic similarities in the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area. * Retroflex consonants in the

Burushaski Burushaski (; ) is a language isolate spoken by Burusho people, who reside almost entirely in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, with a few hundred speakers in northern Jammu and Kashmir, India. In Pakistan, Burushaski is spoken by people ...

, Nuristani, Dravidian, Munda,The Munda Languages. Edited by Gregory D. S. Anderson. London and New York: Routledge (Routledge Language Family Series), 2008. and Indo-Aryan families of

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...

. * The occurrence of

click consonant Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the ''tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' ...

s in

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...

of southern Africa, which originated in the

Khoisan languages The Khoisan languages (; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a group of African languages originally classified together by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan languages share click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. For much of ...

. * The lack of

fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

Australian languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...

. * The use of ejective and aspirated consonants in the

languages of the Caucasus The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows t ...

. * The prevalence of ejective and

lateral fricative A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''Larr ...

s and

affricates An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pa ...

in the Pacific Northwest of North America. * The development of a

close front rounded vowel The close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is /y/, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y. Ac ...

in the

Bearnese dialect Bearnese refers to anything of or relating to Béarn, especially the Bearnais people meaning native of Béarn, and may refer directly to the following articles: * Béarnese dialect * Béarnaise sauce Béarnaise sauce (; ) is a sauce made of clar ...

of Occitan and the Souletin dialect of Basque. * The absence of and presence of in many languages of

Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known a ...

and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...

. * The lack of

nasal consonants In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...

in languages of the

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected m ...

and the

Olympic Peninsula The Olympic Peninsula is a large arm of land in western Washington that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle, and contains Olympic National Park. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a ...

. * The absence of but presence of and in many languages of

Northern Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

and the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...

. * The presence of a voicing contrast on fricatives e.g. vs in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Southwestern Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes ...

Morphophonology

* Vowel alternation patterns in reduplicatives.

Morphology

Syntax

* The tendency in much of Europe to use a transitive verb (e.g. "I have") for possession, rather than a possessive dative construction such as ''mihi est'' (Latin: 'to me is') which is more likely the original possessive construction in

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

, considering the lack of a common root for "have" verbs.Winfred Philipp Lehmann, ''Historical Linguistics: An Introduction'', Routledge, 1992, p. 170
/ref> * The development of a perfect aspect using "have" + past participle in many European languages (Romance, Germanic, etc.). (The Latin ''habeo'' and Germanic ''haben'' used for this and the previous point are not in fact etymologically related.) * A perfect aspect using "be" + past participle for intransitive and reflexive verbs (with participle agreement), present in French, Italian, German, older Spanish and Portuguese, and possibly even English, in phrases like "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" and "The kingdom of this world is become". * Postposed

article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: ...

, avoidance of the

infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is de ...

, merging of

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...

and

dative In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...

, and

superessive In grammar, the superessive case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case indicating location on top of, or on the surface of something. Its name comes from Latin ''supersum, superesse'': to be over and above. While most languages communicate this conce ...

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual number ...

formation in some languages of the

Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

. * The spread of a verb-final word order to the Austronesian languages of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

. * A system of classifiers/measure words in the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area.

Sociolinguistics

* The use of the plural pronoun as a polite word for ''you'' in much of Europe (the ''tu-vous'' distinction).

Notes

References

* Abbi, Anvita. (1992). ''Reduplication in South Asian Languages: An Areal, Typological, and Historical Study''. India: Allied Publishers. *Blevins, Juliette. (2017). Areal sound patterns: From perceptual magnets to stone soup. In R. Hickey (Ed.), ''The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics'' (pp. 88–121). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * * *Chappell, Hilary. (2001). Language contact and areal diffusion in Sinitic languages. In A. Y. Aikhenvald & R. M. W. Dixon (Eds.), ''Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics'' (pp. 328–357). Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Enfield, N. J. (2005). Areal Linguistics and Mainland Southeast Asia. ''Annual Review of Anthropology, 34'', 181-206. * * * *Kirby, James & Brunelle, Marc. (2017). Southeast Asian Tone in Areal Perspective. In R. Hickey (Ed.), ''The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics'' (pp. 703–731). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Matisoff, J. A. (1999). Tibeto-Burman tonology in an areal context. In ''Proceedings of the symposium Crosslinguistic studies of tonal phenomena: Tonogenesis, Japanese Accentology, and Other Topics'' (pp. 3–31). Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. {{DEFAULTSORT:Areal Feature Sprachbund Language geography