Language isolate: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:03, 30 July 2025

Revision as of 12:39, 30 July 2025

Line 10:

==Genetic relationships==

{{Main|Genetic relationship (linguistics)}}

A genetic relationship is when two different languages are descended from a common ancestral language.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last=Thomason|first=Sarah Grey|title=Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics|date=1988|others=Terrence Kaufman|isbn=0-520-07893-4|___location=Berkeley|oclc=16525266}}</ref> This is what makes up a [[language family]], which is a set of languages for which sufficient evidence exists to demonstrate that they descend from a single ancestral language and are therefore genetically related.<ref name=":1" /> For example, [[English language|English]] is related to other [[Indo-European languages]] and [[Mandarin Chinese]] is related to other [[Sino-Tibetan languages]]. By this criterion, each language isolate constitutes a family of its own.<ref name=":4" />

This is not to be confused with family-level isolates, which are not language isolates themselves but form a primary branch of a language family, such as [[Armenian language|Armenian]] within [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] and [[Paiwan language|Paiwan]] within [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian]].

Line 497:

|-

| [[Takelma language|Takelma]]

| Spoken in western [[Oregon]] until mid 20th century. <ref name="jstor.org">{{cite journal |last1=Kendall |first1=Daythall |title=The Takelma Verb: Towards Proto-Takelma-Kalapuyan |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |date=1997 |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=1–17 |doi=10.1086/466312 |jstor=1265863 |s2cid=144593968}}</ref> Part of the [[Penutian]] hypothesis.<ref name="jstor.org"/>

|-

| [[Timucua language|Timucua]]

Line 604:

| style="text-align: center;" colspan="2" |Extinct

| [[Argentina]]

| Formerly spoken in [[Argentina]] by the Guachí. Linkage has been proposed to the [[Mataco–Guaicuru languages|Mataco–Guaicuru language family]], however Campbell (2012) classifies it as an isolate.<ref>{{cite book |lastname="Campbell |first=Lyle |author-link=Lyle Campbell |editor1-last=Grondona |editor1-first=Verónica |editor2-last=Campbell |editor2-first=Lyle |date=2012 |title=The Indigenous Languages of South America |chapter=Classification of the indigenous languages of South America |series=The World of Linguistics |volume=2 |___location=Berlin |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |pages=59–166 |isbn=978-3-11-025513-3}}<SAmerica"/ref>

|-

|[[Guató language|Guató]]

Line 702:

| [[Payagua language|Payaguá]]

| [[Argentina]], [[Paraguay]]

| Spoken in [[Argentina]] and [[Paraguay]] by the [[Payaguá]] until 1943. Linkage has been proposed to the [[Mataco–Guaicuru languages|Mataco–Guaicuru language family]], however Campbell (2012) classifies it as an isolate.<ref>{{cite book |lastname="Campbell |first=Lyle |author-link=Lyle Campbell |editor1-last=Grondona |editor1-first=Verónica |editor2-last=Campbell |editor2-first=Lyle |date=2012 |title=The Indigenous Languages of South America |chapter=Classification of the indigenous languages of South America |series=The World of Linguistics |volume=2 |___location=Berlin |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |pages=59–166 |isbn=978-3-11-025513-3}}<SAmerica"/ref>

|-

| [[Pirahã language|Pirahã]]