A language family is a group of languages
related by
descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language
of that family.
 |
| Examples of language
families (click the map to view) |
As with biological
families, the evidence of relationship is observable
shared characteristics. An accurately identified family
is a phylogenetic
unit; that is, all its members derive from a common ancestor,
and all attested descendants of that ancestor are included
in the family. Most of the world's languages are known
to belong to language families. For the others, family
relationships are not known or only tentatively proposed.
The concept of language families is based on the assumption
that over time languages gradually diverge into dialects
and then into new languages. However, linguistic ancestry
is less clear-cut than biological ancestry, because there
are extreme cases of languages mixing due to language
contact in conquest or trade, whereas biological species
normally don't interbreed. In the formation of creole
languages and other types of mixed
languages, there may be no one ancestor of a given
language. In addition, a number of sign
languages have developed in isolation and may have
no relatives at all. However, these cases are relatively
rare and most languages can be unambiguously classified.
The common ancestor of a language family is seldom known
directly, since most languages have a relatively short
recorded history. However, it is possible to recover many
features of a proto-language by applying the comparative
method—a reconstructive procedure worked out by 19th
century linguist August
Schleicher. This can demonstrate the validity of many
of the proposed families in the list
of language families. For example, the reconstructible
common ancestor of the Indo-European language family is
called Proto-Indo-European.
Proto-Indo-European is not attested by written records,
since it was spoken before the invention of writing.
Sometimes, though, a proto-language
can be identified with a historically known language.
For instance, dialects of Old
Norse are the proto-language of Norwegian,
Swedish,
Danish,
Faroese
and Icelandic.
Likewise, the Appendix
Probi depicts Proto-Romance,
a language almost unattested due to the prestige of Classical
Latin, a highly stylised literary dialect not representative
of the speech of ordinary people.
Language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic
units, conventionally referred to as branches of
the family because the history of a language family is
often represented as a tree
diagram. However, the term family is not restricted
to any one level of this "tree". The Germanic
family, for example, is a branch of the Indo-European
family. Some taxonomists
restrict the term family to a certain level, but
there is little consensus in how to do so. Those who affix
such labels also subdivide branches into groups,
and groups into complexes. The terms superfamily,
phylum, and stock are applied to proposed
groupings of language families whose status as phylogenetic
units is generally considered to be unsubstantiated by
accepted historical linguistic methods.
Languages that cannot be reliably classified into any
family are known as isolates.
A language isolated in its own branch within a family,
such as Greek
within Indo-European, is often also called an isolate;
but the meaning of isolate in such cases is usually
clarified. For instance, Greek might be referred to as
an Indo-European isolate. The isolation of modern Greek,
however, is not typical of its relationship to other languages
at other times in its history. Several Greek dialects
evolved out of the larger Indo-European language group;
and later, Greek words influenced many other languages.
By contrast, the Basque
language is a living modern language and a near perfect
isolate. The history of its lexical, phonetic, and syntactic
structures is not known, and is not easily associated
to other languages, though it has been influenced by Romance
languages in the region, like Castilian
Spanish, Occitan,
and French.
Connections within and between language families are
often used by geneticists
and archaeologists,
in combination with DNA
evidence and archaeological
evidence, to help reconstruct prehistoric migrations and
other prehistoric developments, such as the spread of
the Neolithic
complex of farming, herding, pottery, and polished stone
utensils. For the scientists concerned, this is treacherous
but necessary ground: the linguistic evidence is often
vital to resolving the problems concerned, but must be
handled with caution, for two reasons: first, it is often
a delicate matter to relate languages to archaeological
cultures, on the one hand, and to genetic lineages, on
the other; second, many proposed language relationships
are controversial, which often requires non-linguists
to take a stand on linguistic issues, a professionally
uncomfortable but often inevitable situation.
The Linguist
List is now working on a National Science Foundation
funded project entitled Multitree, to build a database
of all hypothesized language relationships, with a full
searchable bibliography for each.
Grouping
Membership of languages in the same language family is
determined by a genetic
relationship. The languages involved present shared
retentions, i.e., features of the proto-language (or
reflexes of such features) that cannot be explained better
by chance or borrowing
(convergence).
Membership in a branch/group/subgroup within a
language family is determined by shared innovations
which are presumed to have taken place in a common ancestor.
For example, what makes Germanic languages "Germanic"
is that large parts of the structures of all the languages
so designated can be stated just once for all of them.
In other words, they can be treated as an innovation that
took place in Proto-Germanic, the source of all the Germanic
languages.
Shared innovations acquired by borrowing or other means,
are not considered genetic and have no bearing with the
language family concept. It has been asserted, for example,
that many of the more striking features shared by Italic
languages (Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, etc.) might well be
"areal
features". More certainly, very similar-looking alterations
in the systems of long vowels in the West Germanic languages
greatly postdate any possible notion of a proto-language
innovation (and cannot readily be regarded as "areal",
either, since English and continental West Germanic were
not a linguistic area). In a similar vein, there are many
similar unique innovations in Germanic and Baltic/Slavic
that are far more likely to be areal features than traceable
to a common proto-language. But legitimate uncertainty
about whether shared innovations are areal features, coincidence,
or inheritance from a common ancestor, leads to disagreement
over the proper subdivisions of any large language family.
A sprachbund
is a geographic area having several languages that feature
common linguistic structures. The similarities between
those languages are caused by language
contact, not by chance or common origin, and are not
recognized as criteria that define a language family.
See also
Bibliography
- Boas, Franz. (1911). Handbook of American Indian
languages (Vol. 1). Bureau of American Ethnology,
Bulletin 40. Washington: Government Print Office (Smithsonian
Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology).
- Boas, Franz. (1922). Handbook of American Indian
languages (Vol. 2). Bureau of American Ethnology,
Bulletin 40. Washington: Government Print Office (Smithsonian
Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology).
- Boas, Franz. (1933). Handbook of American Indian
languages (Vol. 3). Native American legal materials
collection, title 1227. Glückstadt: J.J. Augustin.
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages:
The historical linguistics of Native America. New
York: Oxford University Press. ISBN
0-19-509427-1.
- Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne (Eds.). (1979).
The languages of native America: Historical and comparative
assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press.
- Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook
of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General
Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution.
ISBN
0-16-048774-9.
- Goddard, Ives. (1999). Native languages and language
families of North America (rev. and enlarged ed.
with additions and corrections). [Map]. Lincoln, NE:
University of Nebraska Press (Smithsonian Institute).
(Updated version of the map in Goddard 1996). ISBN
0-8032-9271-6.
- Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue:
Languages of the world (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL
International. ISBN
1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).
- Greenberg, Joseph H. (1966). The Languages of Africa
(2nd ed.). Bloomington: Indiana University.
- Harrison, K. David. (2007) When Languages Die:
The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion
of Human Knowledge. New York and London: Oxford
University Press.
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native
North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN
0-521-29875-X.
- Ross,
Malcom. (2005). Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic
for grouping Papuan languages. In: Andrew
Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack
Golson, eds, Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and
biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples (PDF)
- Ruhlen, Merritt. (1987). A guide to the world's
languages. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978-present). Handbook
of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington,
D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20
not yet published).
- Voegelin, C. F.; & Voegelin, F. M. (1977). Classification
and index of the world's languages. New York: Elsevier.
External links
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_family
