historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

, sister languages are cognate languages; that is, languages that descend from a common ancestral language, their so-called

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 ...

. Every language in a

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 ...

that descends from the same language as the others is a sister to them. A commonly given example is the

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...

, each of which is a continuation of

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...

. Italian and

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

(both Romance languages) have about 89% lexical overlap, meaning 89 percent of words share the same characteristics and root origins. Similarly, Spanish and Portuguese also have about 89% lexical overlap. Spanish and

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...

overlap less, about 67%, because while Spanish and Portuguese have undergone

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

influence, Romanian has undergone many different influences over the years, particularly from the

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...

and Greek. Along with a large amount of shared vocabulary, the Romance languages share numerous features of morphology and

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...

because they are all continuations of their common ancestor,

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

. The Modern Scots language is considered to be a sister language of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

, as they are both descended from the common ancestor Old English (via Early

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old Englis ...

). The phonological development of the two languages is divergent, with different loanwords entering each language from sources such as Norse, Latin, and French. Political and cultural events have largely dictated the decline of broad Scots as a standard variety in the modern period, and Scots is currently confined to largely spoken use and unofficial functions.Smith, ''Older Scots A Linguistic Reader'', (Scottish Text Society: Edinburgh, 2012)

References

{{Reflist Historical linguistics

See also

References