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{{Short description|Type of synthetic language}}
{{Linguistic typology topics}}
An '''agglutinative language''' is a type of language that primarily forms words by stringing together morphemes (word parts)—each typically representing a single grammatical meaning—without significant modification to their forms ([[Agglutination|agglutinations]]). In such languages, [[Affix|affixes]] ([[Prefix|prefixes]], [[Suffix|suffixes]], [[Infix|infixes]], or [[Circumfix|circumfixes]]) are added to a root word in a linear and systematic way, creating complex words that encode detailed grammatical information. This structure allows for a high degree of transparency, as the boundaries between morphemes are usually clear and their meanings consistent.
Agglutinative languages are a subset of [[Synthetic language|synthetic languages]]. Within this category, they are distinguished from [[Fusional language|fusional languages]], where morphemes often blend or change form to express multiple grammatical functions, and from [[Polysynthetic language|polysynthetic languages]], which can combine numerous morphemes into single words with complex meanings. Examples of agglutinative languages include [[Turkish language|Turkish]], [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Korean language|Korean]],[[Dravidian]] languages like [[Tamil]], [[Malayalam]], [[Kannada]], [[Telugu]], [[Brahui]] and [[Swahili language|Swahili]].
Despite occasional outliers, agglutinative languages tend to have more easily deducible word meanings compared to [[fusional language]]s, which allow unpredictable modifications in either or both the [[phonetics]] or [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] of one or more morphemes within a word.
== Overview ==
Agglutinative languages have generally one [[grammatical category]] per affix while fusional languages combine multiple into one. The term was introduced by [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]] to classify languages from a [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] point of view.<ref name=Stocking1992>{{cite book |last=Stocking |first=George W. |author-link=George W. Stocking, Jr. |year=1995 |isbn=0-299-13414-8 |page=84 |title=The Ethnographer's Magic and Other Essays in the History of Anthropology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6IM1s8rytLQC&pg=PA84 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press}}</ref> It is derived from the [[Latin]] verb ''agglutinare'', which means "to glue together".<ref>{{OEtymD|agglutination}}</ref> For example, the English word ''[[antidisestablishmentarianism]]'' can be broken up into ''anti-'' "against", ''dis-'' "to deprive of", ''establish'' (here referring to the formation of the Church of England), ''-ment'' "the act of", ''-arian'' "a person who", and ''-ism'' "the ideology of". On the other hand, in a word such as ''runs'', the singular suffix ''-s'' indicates the verb is both in third person and present tense, and cannot be further broken down into a "third person" morpheme and a "present tense" morpheme; this behavior is reminiscent of fusional languages.
The term ''agglutinative'' is sometimes incorrectly used as a synonym for [[synthetic language|synthetic]], but that term also includes fusional languages. The agglutinative and fusional languages are two ends of a continuum, with various languages falling more toward one end or the other. For example, [[Japanese language|Japanese]] is generally agglutinative, but displays fusion in some nouns, such as {{Nihongo||[[wikt:弟|弟]]|otōto|extra="younger brother"}}, from ''oto'' + ''hito'' (originally ''woto'' + ''hito'', "young, younger" + "person"), and Japanese verbs, adjectives, the copula, and their affixes undergo sound transformations. For example, {{Nihongo||[[wikt:書く|書く]]|kaku|extra="to write; [someone] writes"}} affixed with {{Nihongo||[[wikt:ます|ます]]|masu|extra=politeness suffix}} and {{Nihongo||[[wikt:た|た]]|ta|extra=past tense marker}} becomes {{Nihongo||書きました|kakimashita|extra="[someone] wrote", with the ''-mas-'' portion used to express a politely distanced social context to the intended audience}}. A synthetic language may use morphological agglutination combined with partial usage of fusional features, for example in its case system (e.g., [[German language|German]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], and [[Persian language|Persian]]).
Persian has some features of agglutination, making use of prefixes and suffixes attached to the stems of verbs and nouns. Persian is an SOV language, thus having a head-final phrase structure.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mouche |first1=Ryan |last2=Renfro |first2=Ashley |last3=Lance |first3=Marshall |title=Persian Syntax |url=https://cedar.wwu.edu/scholwk/2019/2019_poster_presentations/57/ |journal=Scholars Week |date=May 15, 2019}}</ref> Persian utilizes a noun root + plural suffix + case suffix + post-position suffix syntax similar to Turkish. For example the phrase "''xodróhāyešān-rā minegaristam/خودروهایشان را مینگریستم''" meaning 'I was looking at their cars' lit. '(cars their at) (i was looking)'.
Breaking down the first word: ''خودرو'' ''xodró'' (car) + ''ها(ی)'' ''hāye'' (plural suffix) + ''شان'' ''šān'' (possessive suffix) + ''را'' ''rā'' (post-positional suffix) becomes ''خودروهایشان را/xodróhāyešān-rā.'' We can see its agglutinative nature and the fact that Persian is able to affix a given number of dependent morphemes to a root morpheme, ''xodró'' (car).
[[Turkish language|Turkish]] is generally agglutinative, forming words in a similar manner: ''araba'' (car) + ''lar'' (plural) + ''ın'' (possessive suffix, performing the same function as "of" in English) + ''a'' (dative suffix, for the recipient of an action, like "to" in English) forms ''arabalarına'' ({{lit|to their cars}}). However, these suffixes depend upon [[vowel harmony]]: doing the same to ''ev'' ("house") forms ''evlerine'' (to their houses). However, there are other features of the Turkish language that could be considered fusional, such as the suffixes for the simple present tense. This is the only tense where, rather than having a suffix did negation which can be included before the temporal suffix, there are two different suffixes – one for affirmative and one for negative. Giving examples using ''sevmek'' ("to love" or "to like"):
{| class="wikitable"
! English
! Turkish
! colspan="4" | Formation
|-
| I liked
| ''sevdim''
| ''sev-''<br>"like"
| ''-di''<br>(past tense)
| ''-m''<br>(first person singular)
|
|-
| I did not like
| ''sevmedim''
| ''sev-''<br>"like"
| ''-me''<br>"not"
| ''-di''<br>(past tense)
| ''-m''<br>(first person singular)
|-
| I like
| ''severim''
| ''sev-''<br>"like"
| ''-er''<br>(present tense)
| ''-im''<br>(first person singular)
|
|-
| I do not like
| ''sevmem''
| ''sev-''<br>"like"
| ''-me''<br>(negative present tense)
| ''-m''<br>(first person singular)
|
|}
Agglutinative languages tend to have a high rate of affixes or morphemes per word, and to be very regular, in particular with very few [[irregular verbs]] – for example, Japanese has [[Japanese irregular verbs|only two considered fully irregular]], and only about a dozen others with only minor irregularity; [[Luganda]] has only one (or two, depending on how "irregular" is defined); while in the [[Quechua languages]], all ordinary verbs are regular. Again, exceptions exist, such as in [[Georgian language|Georgian]].
== Trends==
Many unrelated languages spoken by [[Ancient Near East]] peoples were agglutinative, though none from larger families have been identified:
* [[Elamite language|Elamite]]
* [[Hattic language|Hattic]]
* [[Kassite language|Kassite]]<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zmvNogJO2ZgC&q=kassite+agglutinative&pg=PA329|title=A Dictionary of Archaeology|last1=Shaw|first1=Ian|last2=Jameson|first2=Robert|date=2002-05-06|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=9780631235835|pages=329|language=en}}</ref>
* [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]]<ref>{{cite web|last=Britannica|title=Sumerian is clearly an agglutinative language|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sumerian-language/Characteristics|url-status=live|accessdate=20 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026214624/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sumerian-language/Characteristics |archive-date=2020-10-26 }}</ref>
Some well known [[constructed language]]s are agglutinative, such as [[Black Speech]],<ref name=Fauskanger>{{cite web |first=Helge K. |last=Fauskanger |author-link=Helge Fauskanger |url=http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/orkish.htm |title=Orkish and the Black Speech |work=Ardalambion |publisher=[[University of Bergen]] |access-date=2 September 2013}}</ref> [[Esperanto]], [[Klingon language|Klingon]], and [[Quenya]].
Agglutination is a typological feature and does not imply a linguistic relation, but there are some families of agglutinative languages. For example, the [[Proto-Uralic language]], the ancestor of the [[Uralic languages]], was agglutinative, and most descendant languages inherit this feature. But since agglutination can arise in languages that previously had a non-agglutinative typology, and it can be lost in languages that previously were agglutinative, agglutination as a typological trait cannot be used as evidence of a genetic relationship to other agglutinative languages. The uncertain theory about [[Ural-Altaic]] proffers that there is a genetic relationship with this proto-language as seen in [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Mongolian language|Mongolian]] and [[Turkish language|Turkish]],<ref>[http://feb-web.ru/feb/izvest/1940/03/403-079.htm Nicholas Poppe, The Uralo-Altaic Theory in the Light of the Soviet Linguistics] Accessed 2010-04-07</ref> and occasionally as well as [[Manchu language|Manchurian]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]] and [[Korean language|Korean]].
Many languages have developed agglutination. This developmental phenomenon is known as [[Drift (linguistics)|language drift]], such as [[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] and [[Malay language|Malay]]. There seems to exist a preferred evolutionary direction from agglutinative synthetic languages to [[fusional languages|fusional synthetic languages]], and then to [[analytic language|non-synthetic languages]], which in their turn evolve into [[isolating language]]s and from there again into agglutinative synthetic languages. However, this is just a trend, and in itself a combination of the trend observable in [[Grammaticalisation|grammaticalization theory]] and that of general linguistic attrition, especially word-final [[apocope]] and [[elision]].
== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}
=== Sources ===
{{refbegin}}
* Bodmer, Frederick. Ed. by Lancelot Hogben. ''The Loom of Language.'' New York, W.W. Norton and Co., 1944, renewed 1972, pages 53, 190ff. {{ISBN|0-393-30034-X}}.
{{refend}}https://glossary.sil.org/term/agglutinative-language<nowiki/>{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agglutinative Language}}
[[Category:Agglutinative languages| ]]
[[Category:Synthetic languages]]
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