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In linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, an areal feature is any typological feature shared by languages within the same geographical area.

Resemblances between two or more languages (whether typological or in vocabulary) can be due to genetic
Genetic (linguistics)

Genetic, in linguistics, means due to descent from a common ancestor language, rather than borrowing at some time in the past between languages that were not necessarily descended from a common ancestor....
 relation (descent from a common ancestor language), or due to borrowing
Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
 at some time in the past between languages that were not necessarily genetically related. When little or no direct documentation of ancestor languages is available, determining whether a similarity is genetic or areal can be difficult.

A related concept is a sprachbund
Sprachbund

A Sprachbund , from the German language word for ?language union?, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact....
 (also known as a linguistic area, convergence area or diffusion area), a group of languages that have become similar in some features because of geographical proximity.








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In linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, an areal feature is any typological feature shared by languages within the same geographical area.

Resemblances between two or more languages (whether typological or in vocabulary) can be due to genetic
Genetic (linguistics)

Genetic, in linguistics, means due to descent from a common ancestor language, rather than borrowing at some time in the past between languages that were not necessarily descended from a common ancestor....
 relation (descent from a common ancestor language), or due to borrowing
Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
 at some time in the past between languages that were not necessarily genetically related. When little or no direct documentation of ancestor languages is available, determining whether a similarity is genetic or areal can be difficult.

A related concept is a sprachbund
Sprachbund

A Sprachbund , from the German language word for ?language union?, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact....
 (also known as a linguistic area, convergence area or diffusion area), a group of languages that have become similar in some features because of geographical proximity.

Examples

  • the use of the plural pronoun as a polite word for you in much of Europe (the tu-vous distinction
    T-V distinction

    In sociolinguistics, a T-V distinction describes the situation wherein a language has Grammatical person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee....
    )
  • the spread of the uvular R
    Uvular consonant

    Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the Palatine uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants....
     from French to several Germanic languages
    Germanic languages

    The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Pre-Roman Iron Age....
  • the presence of the vowel
    Vowel

    In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
    s y
    Close front rounded vowel

    The close front rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y....
    , ø
    Close-mid front rounded vowel

    The close-mid front rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 2....
    , and œ
    Open-mid front rounded vowel

    The open-mid front rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 9....
     (known as front rounded vowels) in languages of northern Eurasia
    Eurasia

    Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
    , most especially Scandinavia
    Scandinavia

    Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
    . This almost certainly originated in the Uralic
    Uralic languages

    The Uralic languages constitute a language families of 39 languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian language, Finnish language, Estonian language, Mari language and Udmurt language....
     or Altaic languages
    Altaic languages

    Altaic is a disputed language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic languages, Mongolic languages, Tungusic languages, Korean language, and Japonic languages language families ....
  • the change of Proto Indo-European *kw into *p in P-Celtic, Oscan
    Oscan language

    Oscan, the language of the Osci, is in the Sabellic branch of the Italic languages, which is a branch of Indo-European languages that also includes Umbrian language, Latin, and Faliscan language....
    , and Greek
    Greek language

    Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
  • possibly the Satem sound change
  • postposed article
    Article (grammar)

    An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the types of reference being made by the noun, and to specify the volume or numerical scope of that reference....
    , avoidance of the infinitive
    Infinitive

    In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English language, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the grammatical particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives....
    , merging of genitive and dative
    Dative

    Dative has several meanings.*In grammar, the dative case is used to indicate the noun to whom something is given.*In chemistry, a dative bond is a chemical bond in which the shared electrons come from one atom only....
    , and superessive number
    Grammatical number

    In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
     formation in some languages of the Balkans. See Balkan sprachbund.
  • the lack of a p
    Voiceless bilabial plosive

    The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p....
     in many of the languages around the Sahara, such as Arabic
    Arabic language

    Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
  • the occurrence of click consonant
    Click consonant

    Clicks are speech sounds such as English tsk! tsk! used to express disapproval, or the tchick! used to spur on a horse. In many languages of southern Africa, and in three languages of East Africa, they are ordinary consonants, found for example in the name of the language Xhosa language....
    s in Bantu languages of southern Africa, which originated in the Khoisan languages
    Khoisan languages

    The Khoisan languages are the click languages of Africa which do not belong to other language families. They include languages indigenous to southern and eastern Africa, though some such, as the Khoi languages, appear to have moved to their current locations not long before the Bantu expansion....
  • the tendency for the relative clause
    Relative clause

    A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun. For example, the noun phrase the man who wasn't there contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there....
     to precede the noun (very rare elsewhere) in languages of South
    South Asia

    South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries on the west and the east....
     and East Asia
    East Asia

    East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either Geography or cultural terms. Geography and geopolitically, it covers about 12,000,000 km?, or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia as Central Asia....
  • the prevalence of contrasting phonemic tone
    Tone (linguistics)

    Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning?that is, to distinguish or inflection words. All languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation , but not all languages use tones to distingu...
     in East and Southeast Asia, which may have started with the Miao-Yao or Kradai languages
  • the lack of fricatives
    Fricative consonant

    Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
     in Australian languages
  • the spread of a verb-final word order
    Subject Object Verb

    In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb is the type of languages in which the subject , object , and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in that order....
     to the Austronesian languages
    Austronesian languages

    The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia....
     of New Guinea
    New Guinea

    New Guinea, located just north of Australia, is the List of islands by area, having become separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded after the last glacial period....
    .
  • and the prevalence of ejective
    Ejective consonant

    In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspiration or tenuis consonants....
     and lateral fricatives and affricates in the Pacific Northwest of North America


See also


  • Sprachbund
    Sprachbund

    A Sprachbund , from the German language word for ?language union?, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact....
  • Comparative method
    Comparative method

    In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages. It requires the use of two or more languages. It is opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which studies the internal development of a single language over time....
  • Mass lexical comparison
    Mass lexical comparison

    Mass comparison is a method developed by Joseph Greenberg to determine the level of genetic relationship between languages. It is now usually called multilateral comparison....
Examples:
  • Balkan sprachbund
  • Native American languages#Linguistic areas
  • East Asian language#Areal linguistic features
  • African languages#Linguistic features
    African languages

    There are an estimated 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. They fall into four major language family:*Afro-Asiatic languages stretches from North Africa to the Horn of Africa and Southwest Asia....
  • Australian Aboriginal languages#Common features
    Australian Aboriginal languages

    The Indigenous Australians languages comprise several Language families and languages and language isolates native to Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding Tasmania....


Bibliography


  • Campbell, Lyle. (In press). Areal linguistics. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd ed.). Oxford: Elsevier. (Online version: http://www.linguistics.utah.edu/Faculty/campbell/CampbellArealLingEnc.doc).