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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.
Oct 19, 2023 · A language family is a group of different languages that all descend from a particular common language. The one language that generated those other languages in its family is known as a protolanguage. Some languages do not come from a protolanguage.
A language family is a set of languages deriving from a common ancestor or "parent." Languages with a significant number of common features in phonology, morphology, and syntax are said to belong to the same language family. Subdivisions of a language family are called "branches."
- Indo-European. Speakers: 3.5 billion (46% of Earth's population) Languages: 583. Location of origin: Ukraine and southern Russia. Time of origin: 4,500 BCE.
- Sino-Tibetan. Speakers: 1.4 billion (18% of Earth's population) Languages: 501. Location of origin: northern China (Yellow River basin) Time of origin: 5,000 BCE.
- Afro-Asiatic. Speakers: 500 million (7% of of Earth's population) Languages: 379. Location of origin: Sudan or Ethiopia. Time of origin: 18,000–8,000 BCE. Culture of origin: African hunter-gatherers (pre-Neolithic)
- Niger-Congo. Speakers: 700 million (9% of Earth's population) Languages: 1,542. Location of origin: West Africa (speculative; Blench, 2006) Time of origin: 9,000–8,000 BCE (speculative; Blench, 2006)
Mar 30, 2022 · Imagine tracing your entire family tree all the way back to a single person and how many branches exist there. A language family functions in the same way. Every language in a language family has descended from a single language, more commonly known as a protolanguage.
Jul 22, 2020 · What Are Language Families? A language family, like any other family, is best thought of as a tree. The idea is that there is one single language — the trunk — that all the members of the language family grew out of. The concept of branches is also useful because usually these new languages form by splitting off from each other.
The classification of languages into families has not been uncontroversial, especially when mega-family relationships between two entire families are proposed. The two opposite positions regarding such proposals are: 1. The clumpers (who tend to favor clumping many languages into few families) 2. The splitters (who will only concede ...
