Linguists classify languages using three main classification systems: typological, areal and gene... more Linguists classify languages using three main classification systems: typological, areal and genetic. A genetic classification of languages divides them into families on the basis of their historical development. Linguists manage to set up genetic classifications by comparing languages and trying to define constant rules about their similarities (and differences). This method is called comparative linguistics. The classification of languages in groups of languages is called genetic classification: two languages belonging to the same group are genetically linked. According to the genetic classification most languages are seen as belonging to language families. Maximal groups of related languages are called language families. A language family is a group of languages which are assumed to have arisen from a single source: i.e., a group of languages that descend historically from the same common ancestor form a language family. For example, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam are all members of the Dravidian family of languages, and are considered to have descended from a common ancestor. Languages in the same family share many common grammatical features and many of the key words, especially older words, which show their common origin. For example Dutch, German and Swedish are all languages belonging to the Indo-European family of languages along with English and the English word for month is maand, monat and månad in them respectively. The process of divergent development of a language gives rise to further languages, with common features of the parent language added to new features, resulting in a whole complex family of languages with various branches. For example, the Romance languages form a language family because they all descended from the Latin language. Latin, in turn, belongs to a larger language family, the Indo-European. Languages in a family may be more closely and some distantly related to each other. For instance, Malayalam is more closely related to Tamil than to Kannada though all three belong to the same family. From the above we can understand that a language family is a grouping of linguistically linked languages, stemming from a common ancestral mother-language called Protolanguage. 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 "subfamilies" or "branches." It is estimated that there are nearly 200-250 established language families in the world, and about 6500-6,800 distinct languages, many of which are threatened or endangered. However, to belong to the same family does not guarantee an obvious similarity, nor a standard level of comprehension between the speakers of these languages. The common historic ancestor of a family of languages is referred to as protolanguage (proto-means 'early' in Greek). A proto-language is a language (usually hypothetical or reconstructed, and unattested) from which a number of attested, or documented, known languages are believed to have descended by evolution. For instance, languages like Sanskrit, Greek and Latin descended, from one common ancestor, the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language. Occasionally, the German term Ursprache (from Ur-"primordial" and Sprache "language"), is used instead of proto-language. A 'family tree' diagram is commonly used to represent the relationships between the members of a linguistic family, in which an initial parent language 'gives birth' to a number of 'daughters', which in turn give birth to others. There are languages that do not belong to any language family at all. They are called language isolates, a language that cannot be reliably assigned to any family. Such languages have no demonstrable relation with others, and cannot be classified within a specific family. An example would be Basque, a language spoken in Spain and France. Burushaski, spoken in a remote part of northern Pakistan is another example.
Uploads
Drafts by Jain Mathew