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ISO 639-5
ISO 639-5:2008 "Codes for the representation of names of languages—Part 5: Alpha-3 code for language families and groups" is an international standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It was developed by ISO Technical Committee 37, Subcommittee 2, and first published on May 15, 2008. It is part of the ISO 639 series of standards. Collective codes This is a list of ISO 639-5 codes, including the code hierarchy as given in the ISO 639-5 registry. The code und (''undetermined'') from ISO 639-2 can be seen as top of the hierarchy (for example, und:aav, und:euq:eu). The hierarchy is not a complete genetic hierarchy; some of the collection codes are based on geography (like nai) or category (like crp) instead. ISO 639-5 defines ''alpha-3'' (3-letter) codes, called "collective codes", that identify language families and groups. As of the February 11, 2013, update to ISO 639-5, the standard defines 115 collective codes. The United States Library of ... [...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] |
Arawakan Languages
Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient Indigenous peoples in South America. Branches migrated to Central America and the Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean and the Atlantic, including what is now the Bahamas. Almost all present-day South American countries are known to have been home to speakers of Arawakan languages, the exceptions being Ecuador, Uruguay, and Chile. Maipurean may be related to other language families in a hypothetical Macro-Arawakan stock. Name The name ''Maipure'' was given to the family by Filippo S. Gilii in 1782, after the Maipure language of Venezuela, which he used as a basis of his comparisons. It was renamed after the culturally more important Arawak language a century later. The term ''Arawak'' took over, until its use was extended by North American scholars to the broad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Caucasian Languages
The Kartvelian languages ( ; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages Boeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Georgia. There are approximately 5 million Georgian language speakers worldwide, with large groups in Russia, Iran, the United States, the European Union, Israel, and northeastern Turkey. The Kartvelian family has no known relation to any other language family, making it one of the world's primary language families. The most widely spoken of these languages is Georgian. The earliest literary source in any Kartvelian language is the Old Georgian Bir el Qutt inscriptions, written in ancient Georgian Asomtavruli script at the once-existing Georgian monastery near Bethlehem,Lang (1966), p. 154 dated to . Georgian scripts are used to write all Kartvelian languages. Status Georgian is the official language of Georgia (spoken by 90% of the popu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Caucasian Languages
The North Caucasian languages, sometimes called simply Caucasic, is a proposed language family consisting of a pair of well established language families spoken in the Caucasus, predominantly in the north, consisting of the Northwest Caucasian family (also called ''Pontic, Abkhaz–Adyghe, Circassian,'' or ''West Caucasian'') and the Northeast Caucasian family (also called ''Nakh–Dagestanian'', ''Caspian'' or ''East Caucasian''). There are some 34 to 38 distinct North Caucasian languages. The Kartvelian languages, including Georgian, Zan and Svan, were once known as South Caucasian. However, they are no longer considered related to the North Caucasian languages and are classified as an independent language family. Some linguists, notably Sergei Starostin and Sergei Nikolaev, believe that the two groups sprang from a common ancestor about five thousand years BCE.Nikolayev, S., and S. Starostin. 1994 ''North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary''. Moscow: Asterisk PressAvailabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chibchan Languages
The Chibchan languages (also known as Chibchano) make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian Area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The name is derived from the name of an extinct language called ''Chibcha language, Chibcha'' or ''Muisca'', once spoken by the people who lived on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of which the city of Bogotá was the southern capital at the time of the Spanish Conquista. However, genetic and linguistic data now indicate that the original heart of Chibchan languages and Chibchan-speaking peoples might not have been in Colombia, but in the area of the Costa Rica-Panama border, where the greatest variety of Chibchan languages has been identified. External relations A larger family called ''Macro-Chibchan'', which would contain the Misumalpan languages, Xinca language, Xinca, and Lenca language, Lenca, was found convincing by Kau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caucasian Languages
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 the classification of these languages into several different language families, with little or no discernible affinity to each other. However, the languages of the Caucasus are sometimes mistakenly referred to as a ''family'' of languages.Tuite, Kevin. (1999). The myth of the Caucasian Sprachbund: The case of ergativity. Lingua. 108. 1-29/ref> According to Asya Pereltsvaig, "grammatical differences between the three groups of languages are considerable. ..These differences force the more conservative historical linguistics to treat the three language families of the Caucasus as unrelated." Families indigenous to the Caucasus Three of these families have no current indigenous members outside the Caucasus, and are considered indigenous to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central American Indian Languages
Mesoamerican languages are the languages indigenous to the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers southern Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The area is characterized by extensive linguistic diversity containing several hundred different languages and seven major language families. Mesoamerica is also an area of high linguistic diffusion in that long-term interaction among speakers of different languages through several millennia has resulted in the convergence of certain linguistic traits across disparate language families. The Mesoamerican sprachbund is commonly referred to as the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. The languages of Mesoamerica were also among the first to evolve independent traditions of writing. The oldest texts date to approximately 1000 BCE (namely Olmec and Zapotec), though most texts in the indigenous scripts (such as Maya) date to c. 600–900 CE. Following the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Batak Languages
__FORCETOC__ The Batak languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages spoken by the Batak people in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra and surrounding areas. Internal classification The Batak languages can be divided into two main branches, Northern Batak and Southern Batak. Simalungun was long considered an intermediary, but in current classifications it is recognized as part of the Southern branch.Adelaar, K. A. (1981). "Reconstruction of Proto-Batak Phonology". In Robert A. Blust (ed.), ''Historical Linguistics in Indonesia: Part I'', 1–20. Jakarta: Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya. Within Northern Batak, a study noted 80% cognate words between Karo and Alas, 81% with Pakpak, 76% with Simalungun & Toba, and 30% with Malay (Indonesian).The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar. K. Alexander Adelaar, Nikolaus Himmelmann, p. 535 Karo and Toba Batak are mutually unintelligible. Mandailing, Toba and Angkola are related to each other and mutually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bantu Languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The total number of Bantu languages is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages, depending on the definition of Dialect#Dialect or language, "language" versus "dialect"."Guthrie (1967–71) names some 440 Bantu 'varieties', Grimes (2000) has 501 (minus a few 'extinct' or 'almost extinct'), Bastin ''et al.'' (1999) have 542, Maho (this volume) has some 660, and Mann ''et al.'' (1987) have ''c.'' 680." Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', p. 2:Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid" lists a total of 535 languages. The count includes 13 Mbam languages, which are not always included under "Narrow Bantu". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bihari Languages
Bihari languages are a group of the Indo-Aryan languages. The Bihari languages are mainly spoken in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, and also in Nepal.Brass, Paul R. (1974). ''Language, Religion and Politics in North India''. Cambridge University Press. The most widely spoken languages of the Bihari group are Bhojpuri, Magahi/ Khortha, Nagpuri and Maithili. Despite the large number of speakers of these languages, only Maithili has been constitutionally recognised in India, which gained constitutional status via the 92nd amendment to the Constitution of India, of 2003 (gaining assent in 2004). Both Maithili and Bhojpuri have constitutional recognition in Nepal. Bhojpuri-Awadhi-Magahi mix is also official in Fiji as Fiji Hindi. There are demands for including Bhojpuri and Magahi/Khortha in the 8th schedule of Indian constitution. In Bihar, Hindi is the language used for educational and official matters. These languages were legally a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berber Languages
The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berbers, Berber communities, who are indigenous to North Africa.Hayward, Richard J., chapter ''Afroasiatic'' in Heine, Bernd & Nurse, Derek, editors, ''African Languages: An Introduction'' Cambridge 2000. . The languages are primarily spoken and not typically written. Historically, they have been written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which now exists in the form of Tifinagh. Today, they may also be written in the Berber Latin alphabet or the Arabic script, with Latin being the most pervasive. The Berber languages have a similar level of variety to the Romance languages, although they are sometimes referred to as a single collective language, often as "Berber", "Tamazight", or "Amazigh". The languages, with a few exceptions, form a dialect continuum. There is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltic Languages
The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively or as a second language by a population of about 6.5–7.0 million people''"Lietuviai Pasaulyje"'' (PDF) (in Lithuanian). Lietuvos statistikos departamentas. Retrieved 5 May 2015. mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Europe. Together with the Slavic languages, they form the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European family. Scholars usually regard them as a single Subgrouping, subgroup divided into two branches: West Baltic languages, West Baltic (containing only extinct languages) and East Baltic languages, East Baltic (containing at least two Modern language, living languages, Lithuanian language, Lithuanian, Latvian l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
