By number of native speakers
This is a list of the top ten families with wide recognition as phylogenetic units, in terms of numbers of native speakers as a proportion of
world populationThe term world population commonly refers to the total number of living humans on Earth at a given time. As of , the Earth's population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be billion. The world population has been growing continuously since the end of the Black Death around 1400...
, listed with their core geographic areas.
- Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
46% (EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
, SouthwestWestern Asia, West Asia, Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia are terms that describe the westernmost portion of Asia. The terms are partly coterminous with the Middle East - which describes geographical position in relation to Western Europe rather than location within Asia...
to South AsiaSouth 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...
, AmericaThe Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere or New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America...
, OceaniaOceania is a geographical, often geopolitical, region consisting of numerous lands—mostly islands in the Pacific Ocean and vicinity. The term "Oceania" was coined in 1831 by French explorer Dumont d'Urville...
)
- Sino-Tibetan languages
The Sino-Tibetan languages form a language family composed of, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia...
21% (East AsiaEast Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geo-politically, it covers about , or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang,...
)
- Niger-Congo languages
The Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
6.4% (Sub-Saharan AfricaSub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
)
- Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages constitute a language family with about 375 living languages and more than 350 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Southwest Asia, as well as parts of the Sahel, West Africa and East Africa. Arabic is the most widespread Afroasiatic...
6.0% (North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
to Horn of AfricaThe Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts for hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea, and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
, Southwest AsiaWestern Asia, West Asia, Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia are terms that describe the westernmost portion of Asia. The terms are partly coterminous with the Middle East - which describes geographical position in relation to Western Europe rather than location within Asia...
)
- Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
5.9% (OceaniaOceania is a geographical, often geopolitical, region consisting of numerous lands—mostly islands in the Pacific Ocean and vicinity. The term "Oceania" was coined in 1831 by French explorer Dumont d'Urville...
, MadagascarMadagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth-largest island in the world, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are endemic to...
, maritime Southeast Asia)
- Dravidian languages
The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other...
3.7% (South AsiaSouth 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...
)
- Altaic languages
Altaic is a language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic language families . These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...
2.3% (Central AsiaAsia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.Various definitions of its...
, Northern Asia, AnatoliaAnatolia is a geographic region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Iranian plateau to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west...
, SiberiaSiberia , is the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the...
)
- Japonic languages
Japonic or Japanese-Ryukyuan is a language family composed of Japanese and Ryukyuan. Their common ancestral language is known as Proto-Japonic or Proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan. The essential feature of this classification is that the first split in the family resulted in the separation of all dialects...
2.1% (Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
)
- Austro-Asiatic languages
The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name comes from the Latin word for "south" and the Greek name of Asia, hence "South Asia." Among these languages, only Vietnamese, Khmer, and Mon have a long...
1.7% (mainland Southeast Asia)
- Tai-Kadai languages
The Kradai or Kra-Dai languages, also known as Daic, Kadai, or Tai-Kadai, are a language family of highly tonal languages found in southern China and Southeast Asia. The diversity of the Kradai languages in southeastern China, especially on Hainan, suggests that this is close to their homeland...
1.3% (Southeast AsiaManila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan|-|}...
)
Phyla with historically wide geographical distributions but comparatively few contemporary speakers include
Eskimo-AleutEskimo-Aleut is a language family native to Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenland, and the Chukchi Peninsula on the eastern tip of Siberia...
,
Na-DenéNa-Dene is a Native American language family which includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. An inclusion of Haida is controversial...
,
AlgicThe Algic languages are an indigenous language family of North America. They are all thought to descend from Proto-Algic, a second-order proto language reconstructed using Proto-Algonquian and the attested languages Wiyot and Yurok.The term Algic was used by Edward Sapir, who discovered the...
,
QuechuanThe neologism 'Quechuan' is synonymous with Quechua, the name of the most widely spoken Native American language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably some 6 to 8 million speakers...
and
Nilo-SaharanThe Nilo-Saharan languages are African languages spoken mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers , including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet...
.
By number of languages
According to the numbers in
EthnologueEthnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language.The Ethnologue contains statistics for 7,358 languages...
, the largest language families in terms of number of languages are the following. Some families are controversial, and in many the language count varies between researchers.
- Niger-Congo (1532 languages)
- Austronesian
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
(1257 languages)
- Trans–New Guinea (477 languages)
- Sino-Tibetan
The Sino-Tibetan languages form a language family composed of, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia...
(449 languages)
- Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
(439 languages)
- Afro-Asiatic (374 languages)
- Nilo-Saharan (205 languages) [controversial]
- Pama-Nyungan
The Pama-Nyungan languages are the most widespread family of Indigenous Australian languages, containing 160 of 228 identified languages.The Pama-Nyungan family was identified and named by Kenneth Hale, in his work on the classification of Native Australian languages...
(178 languages) [lumped in with "Australian"]
- Oto-Manguean (177 languages) (number varies; Lyle Campbell
Lyle Richard Campbell is a linguist and leading expert on American Indian languages—especially those of Mesoamerica—and on historical linguistics in general. He also has expertise in Uralic languages...
counts 27)
- Austro-Asiatic (169 languages)
- Kradai (92 languages)
- Dravidian
The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other...
(85 languages)
- Tupian
The Tupi or Tupian language family comprises some 70 languages spoken in South America, of which the best known are Tupi proper and Guarani.-History, members, and classification:...
(76 languages)
Language families
In the following, each "bulleted" item is a known or suspected language family. The geographic headings over them are meant solely as a tool for grouping families into collections more comprehensible than an unstructured list of a few hundred independent families. Geographic relationship is convenient for that purpose, but these headings are
not a suggestion of any "super-families" phylogenetically relating the families named.
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the...
and Southwest AsiaWestern Asia, West Asia, Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia are terms that describe the westernmost portion of Asia. The terms are partly coterminous with the Middle East - which describes geographical position in relation to Western Europe rather than location within Asia...
- Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages constitute a language family with about 375 living languages and more than 350 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Southwest Asia, as well as parts of the Sahel, West Africa and East Africa. Arabic is the most widespread Afroasiatic...
(formerly Hamito-Semitic)
- Niger-Congo languages
The Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
(sometimes Niger-Kordofanian)
- Nilo-Saharan languages
The Nilo-Saharan languages are African languages spoken mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers , including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet...
- Khoe languages
The Khoe languages are the largest of the non-Bantu language families indigenous to southern Africa. They are often considered to be a branch of a suspected Khoisan language family, and are known as Central Khoisan in that scenario. The nearest relative of the Khoe family appears to be the extinct...
(part of the KhoisanThe 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...
proposal)
- Tuu languages
The Tuu or Taa-ǃKwi languages are a language family consisting of two language clusters spoken in Botswana and South Africa. The relationship between the two is not doubted, but is not close. The name Tuu comes from a word for person common to both branches of the family...
(part of Khoisan)
- Juu-ǂHoan languages (part of Khoisan)
- Ubangian languages
The Ubangian languages form a fairly close-knit language family of some seventy languages centered on the Central African Republic. They are the predominant languages of the CAR, spoken by 2–3 million people, and include the national language, Sango....
- Mande languages
The Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé people and include Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Bissa, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo, Mende, Susu, Yacouba, Vai, and Ligbi...
(perhaps Niger-Congo)
- Songhay languages
The Songhay, Songhai, or Songai languages are a group of closely related languages/dialects centered on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the west African nations of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria...
- Kadu languages
The Kadu, Kadugli-Krongo, or Tumtum languages are a small language family, once included in Kordofanian but since Thilo Schadeberg widely seen as Nilo-Saharan. However, there is little evidence, and a conservative classification would treat them as an independent family...
- Koman languages (perhaps Nilo-Saharan)
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
and NorthNorth Asia or Northern Asia is sometimes defined as a subregion of Asia consisting only of the Asian portion of Russia. The term is not widely used...
, West and South AsiaSouth 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...
- Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
- Tyrsenian languages
Tyrsenian , after the Tyrrhenoi, is a proposed classification by Helmut Rix , who argues for a close relationship of the Etruscan language and the Raetic language, together with the Lemnian language. Rix assumes a date for Proto-Tyrsenian of roughly 1000 BC. Related words between Rhaetic and...
- Dravidian languages
The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other...
- Northwest Caucasian languages
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Abkhazo-Adyghean, or sometimes Pontic as opposed to Caspian , are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region, chiefly in Russia , the disputed territory of Abkhazia, and Turkey, with smaller communities scattered throughout the...
(often included in North CaucasianNorth Caucasian languages is a blanket term for two language phyla spoken chiefly in the north Caucasus and Turkey: the Northwest Caucasian family and the Northeast Caucasian family North Caucasian languages (sometimes called simply Caucasic as opposed to Kartvelian, and to avoid confusion with...
)
- Northeast Caucasian languages
The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh'-Dag'estanian, or Caspian, constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, in northern Azerbaijan, and in Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the...
(often included in North Caucasian)
- Hurro-Urartian languages
The Hurro-Urartian languages are an extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, which comprises only two languages, Hurrian and Urartian, both of which were spoken in the Taurus mountains area....
(extinctAn extinct language is a language which no longer has any speakers. Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages: no longer spoken as a main language.-Language loss:...
, perhaps related to Northeast Caucasian)
- South Caucasian languages
The South Caucasian languages are spoken primarily in Georgia, with smaller groups of speakers in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Israel. There are approximately 5.2 million speakers of this language family group worldwide.It is not known to be related to any other language group in the world...
- Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken by some...
(part of the AltaicAltaic is a language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic language families . These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...
proposal)
- Mongolic languages
The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in Central Asia, notably including Mongolian.Mongolic is sometimes grouped with Turkic and Tungusic as part of the larger Altaic family....
(part of Altaic)
- Tungusic languages
The Tungusic languages are spoken by Tungusic people in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Many Tungusic languages are endangered, and the long-term future of the family is uncertain...
(part of Altaic)
- Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of 39 languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
- Yukaghir languages
The Yukaghir languages are a small family of two closely related languages spoken in the Russian Far East by the Yukaghir, an indigenous people of Eastern Siberia, living in the basin of the Kolyma River...
- Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
The Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages are a language family of northeastern Siberia. The family is also known as Chukchi-Kamchatkan.Less commonly encountered names for this family are Chukchian, Chukotian, Chukotan, Kamchukchee and Kamchukotic...
- Dené-Yeniseian languages
Dené-Yeniseian is a language family consisting of the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dené languages of northwestern North America. It is the first accepted linguistic connection between the Old and New Worlds, not counting a few Yupik languages found at the eastern tip of Siberia...
East AsiaEast Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geo-politically, it covers about , or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang,...
, Southeast AsiaManila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan|-|}...
, North East India and the Pacific
- Andamanese languages
The Andamanese languages form a proposed language family spoken by the Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. There are two clusters of Andamanese languages, Great Andamanese and Ongan, plus Sentinelese, which is unknown and therefore unclassifiable.- History :The...
(perhaps two families)
- Austro-Asiatic languages
The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name comes from the Latin word for "south" and the Greek name of Asia, hence "South Asia." Among these languages, only Vietnamese, Khmer, and Mon have a long...
- Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
(part of the Austro-Tai proposal)
- Hmong-Mien languages
The Hmong-Mien or Miao-Yao languages are a small language family of southern China and Southeast Asia. They are spoken in mountainous areas of southern China, including Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, and Hubei provinces, where its speakers have been relegated to being "hill people,"...
- Japonic languages
Japonic or Japanese-Ryukyuan is a language family composed of Japanese and Ryukyuan. Their common ancestral language is known as Proto-Japonic or Proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan. The essential feature of this classification is that the first split in the family resulted in the separation of all dialects...
- Sino-Tibetan languages
The Sino-Tibetan languages form a language family composed of, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia...
- Tai-Kadai languages
The Kradai or Kra-Dai languages, also known as Daic, Kadai, or Tai-Kadai, are a language family of highly tonal languages found in southern China and Southeast Asia. The diversity of the Kradai languages in southeastern China, especially on Hainan, suggests that this is close to their homeland...
(part of Austro-Tai proposal)
New GuineaNew Guinea, located north of Australia, is the world's second largest island. It became separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded after the last glacial period. The name Papua has long been associated with the island...
and neighboring islands
- Baining languages
The Baining or East New Britain languages are a small language family spoken on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable....
- Border languages
The Border or Tami languages are an independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal.-Classification:Border* Morwap isolate...
- Central Solomons languages
The term East Papuan languages refers to a defunct proposal for a family of Papuan languages spoken on the islands to the east of New Guinea, including New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, and the Santa Cruz Islands...
- East Bird's Head-Sentani languages
The East Bird's Head–Sentani languages form a family of Papuan languages proposed by Malcolm Ross which combines the East Bird's Head and Sentani families along with the Burmeso and Tause language isolates. Sentani had been a branch of Stephen Wurm's proposal for Trans–New Guinea...
- Eastern Trans-Fly languages
The Eastern Trans-Fly languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that constituted a branch of Stephen Wurm's 1970 Trans-Fly proposal, which he later incorporated into his 1975 expansion of the Trans–New Guinea family as part of a Trans...
(one in Australia)
- Fas languages
The Fas languages are a small language family of Papua New Guinea. They are generally classified as part of a larger as-yet unproven Kwomtari-Baibai family....
- East Geelvink Bay languages
- Lakes Plain languages
The Lakes Plain languages are a small family of Papuan languages. They were tentatively grouped by Stephen Wurm with the Tor languages in his Trans–New Guinea proposal. Clouse found no evidence of a connection to the Tor languages and grouped them with the Geelvink Bay languages...
(upper Mamberamo River)
- Left May languages
The Left May or Arai languages are a small language family of half a dozen closely related but not mutually intelligible languages in the centre of New Guinea, along the left bank of the May River. There are about 1600 speakers in all....
- Kwomtari languages
The Kwomtari languages are a small language family of Papua New Guinea. The family consists of the highly divergent language Guriaso, and the two closely related languages Kwomtari and Nai:*Kwomtari stock**Guriaso**Kwomtari-Nai family***Kwomtari...
- Mairasi languages
The Mairasi languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal.-Classification:* Mairasi family: Semimi, Mer, Mairasi, Northeastern Mairasi...
- Nimboran languages
The Nimboran languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal...
- North Bougainville languages
The North or West Bougainville languages are a small language family spoken on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable, and was abandoned in Ethnologue .The family includes the closely related Rotokas...
- Piawi languages
The Piawi languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal.-Classification:Piawi consists of only two languages:...
- Ramu-Lower Sepik languages
The Ramu–Lower Sepik languages are a proposed family of 35 Papuan languages spoken in the Ramu and Sepik river basins of northern Papua New Guinea. These languages tend to have simple phonologies, with few consonants or vowels and usually no tones....
- Senagi languages
The Senagi languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal....
- Sepik languages
The Sepik languages are a family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1956 in a somewhat more limited form than presented here. The languages tend to have simple phonologies, with few consonants or vowels and usually...
- Skou languages
The Sko or Skou languages are a small language family spoken by about 7000 people, mainly along the coast of Sandaun Province in Papua New Guinea, with a few being inland from this area and at least one just across the border in the Indonesian province of Papua . Skou languages are unusual in New...
- South Bougainville languages
The South or East Bougainville languages are a small language family spoken on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable, and was abandoned in Ethnologue .The languages include a closely related group...
- South-Central Papuan languages
The South-Central Papuan languages are a family of Papuan languages proposed in 2005 by Malcolm Ross. It inherits much of the Trans-Fly–Bulaka River family posited by Stephen Wurm as a branch of his 1975 Trans–New Guinea proposal...
- Tor-Kwerba languages
The Tor-Kwerba languages are an independent family of Papuan languages proposed in 2005 by Malcolm Ross. All the languages had been part of Stephen Wurm's 1975 Trans–New Guinea proposal, but he did not recognize them as a unit, retaining Kwerba within Capell's 1962 Dani-Kwerba...
- Torricelli languages
The Torricelli languages are a language family of about fifty languages of the northern Papua New Guinea coast, spoken by only about 80,000 people in all. Named after Torricelli Mountains. The most populous and best known Torricelli languages are the Arapesh, with about 30,000 speakers.The most...
- Trans–New Guinea (the largest family)
- West New Britain languages
The Yele–West New Britain languages are a tentative family proposed by Malcom Ross which unites three language isolates, Anêm and Ata of New Britain, and Yélî Dnye of Rossel Island...
- West Papuan languages
The West Papuan languages are a hypothetical language family of about two dozen Papuan languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula of far western New Guinea and the island of Halmahera, spoken by about 220 000 people in all...
- Yuat languages
The Yuat languages are an independent family of a dozen Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Sepik-Ramu proposal...
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
- Bunaban languages
- Daly languages
The Daly languages are proposed to be the third largest family of Indigenous Australian languages . They are spoken within the vicinity of the Daly River in the Northern Territory....
- Limilngan languages
The Limilngan languages are a small family of Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Australia. There are only two languages in this group, Limilngan and Wulna, which as of 1981 had only three and one speakers, respectively, and which may now be extinct....
- Djeragan languages
- Nyulnyulan languages
The Nyulnyulan languages are a small family of closely related Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Australia.The languages form two subgroups, Nyulnyul , and Jukun ,...
- Wororan languages
- Mirndi languages
- Arnhem Land languages
The Arnhem Land languages are a recently proposed Australian language family spoken over a large part of Arnhem Land in northern Australia.The traditionally accepted languages families included in this proposal are,*Burarran*Iwaidjan*Giimbiyu...
(3 families and 2 isolates)
- Gunwinyguan languages
The Gunwinyguan languages form the second largest family of Australian Aboriginal languages. They are spoken in Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The most populous language is Gunwinygu, with some 1500 speakers....
- Pama-Nyungan languages
The Pama-Nyungan languages are the most widespread family of Indigenous Australian languages, containing 160 of 228 identified languages.The Pama-Nyungan family was identified and named by Kenneth Hale, in his work on the classification of Native Australian languages...
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
and MesoamericaMesoamerica or Meso-America is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries...
- Algic languages
The Algic languages are an indigenous language family of North America. They are all thought to descend from Proto-Algic, a second-order proto language reconstructed using Proto-Algonquian and the attested languages Wiyot and Yurok.The term Algic was used by Edward Sapir, who discovered the...
(incl. Algonquian languagesThe Algonquian languages languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is itself...
) (14)
- Alsean languages
The Alsean language family consists of two closely related languages that were spoken along the central Oregon coast.-Family division:Two languages:# Alsea # Yaquina ...
(0)
- Caddoan languages
The Caddoan languages are a family of Native American languages. They are spoken by Native Americans throughout the Great Plains of the central United States, from North Dakota south to Oklahoma.-Family division:...
(4)
- Chimakuan languages
The Chimakuan language family consists of two languages spoken in northwestern Washington, USA on the Olympic Peninsula. It is part of the Mosan sprachbund, and one of its languages is famous for having no nasal consonants...
(1)
- Chinookan languages
Chinookan is a small family of languages spoken in Oregon and Washington along the Columbia River by Chinook peoples.-Family division:Chinookan consists of three languages with multiple varieties. There is some dispute over classification, and there are two ISO 639-3 codes assigned: and...
(1)
- Chumashan languages
Chumashan is a family of languages that were spoken on the southern California coast , in neighboring Coast and Transverse range valleys bordering the San Joaquin Valley, and on three adjacent Channel islands .All of the Chumashan languages are now extinct, although they are well documented in the...
(0)
- Comecrudan languages
Comecrudan refers to a group of possibly related languages spoken in the southernmost part of Texas and in northern Mexico along the Rio Grande. Comecrudo is the most well-known.Very little is known about these languages or the people who spoke them...
(0)
- Coosan languages
This article is about the language Hanis; for the Akkadian god see HaniThe Coosan language family consists of two languages spoken along the southern Oregon coast...
(0)
- Dené-Yeniseian languages
Dené-Yeniseian is a language family consisting of the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dené languages of northwestern North America. It is the first accepted linguistic connection between the Old and New Worlds, not counting a few Yupik languages found at the eastern tip of Siberia...
(40 in North America, 1 in Asia)
- Eskimo-Aleut languages
Eskimo-Aleut is a language family native to Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenland, and the Chukchi Peninsula on the eastern tip of Siberia...
(5)
- Iroquoian languages
The Iroquoian languages are a First Nation and Native American language family. The language family, amongst others, includes Mohawk, Huron-Wyandot and Cherokee.Every language in this family has at least one nasal vowel phoneme...
(7)
- Kalapuyan languages
Kalapuyan is a small extinct language family that was spoken in the Willamette Valley of Western Oregon, United States. It consists of three languages.-Family division:Kalapuyan consists of...
(0)
- Keres languages (2)
- Kiowa-Tanoan languages
Kiowa-Tanoan is a family of languages spoken in New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.Most of the languages—Tiwa , Tewa, and Towa—are spoken in the Pueblos of New Mexico and called collectively Tanoan, while Kiowa is spoken mostly in southwestern Oklahoma.-Kiowa-Tanoan languages:The...
(6)
- Maiduan languages
Maiduan is a small endangered language family of northeastern California.-Family division:The Maiduan consists of 4 languages:# Maidu...
(3)
- Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
(Mesoamerica) (31)
- Mixe-Zoquean languages (Mesoamerica) (19)
- Muskogean languages
Muskogean is an indigenous language family of the Southeastern United States. Though there is an ongoing debate concerning their interrelationships, the Muskogean languages are generally divided into two branches, Eastern Muskogean and Western Muskogean...
(5)
- Oto-Manguean languages
Oto-Manguean languages are a large family comprising several families of Native American languages. All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico, but Oto-Manguean languages that are now extinct were spoken as far south as Nicaragua...
(Mesoamerica) (27)
- Palaihnihan languages
-Family division:Palaihnihan is said to comprise:# Atsugewi # Achumawi -Genetic relations:The basis of this assertion is weakened by poor quality of data...
(1)
- Plateau Penutian languages
Plateau Penutian is a family of languages spoken in northern California, reaching through central-western Oregon to northern Washington and central-northern Idaho.-Family division:...
(a.k.a. Shahapwailutan) (3)
- Pomoan languages
Pomoan is a family of endangered languages spoken in northern California by the Pomo people on the Pacific Coast. According to the 2000 census, there are 255 speakers of the languages...
(5)
- Salishan languages
The Salishan languages are a group of languages of the Pacific Northwest...
(16)
- Shastan languages
The Shastan family consisted of four languages, spoken in present-day northern California and southern Oregon.-Family division:# Konomihu # New River Shasta # Okwanuchu ...
(0)
- Siouan-Catawban
Siouan-Catawban is a language family of North America that is located primarily in the Great Plains of North America with a few outlier languages in the east.Some authors call this family simply Siouan...
(10)
- Tequistlatecan languages (Mesoamerica) (2)
- Totonacan languages
The Totonacan Languages are a family of closely-related languages spoken by approximately 200,000 Totonac and Tepehua people in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo in Mexico...
(Mesoamerica) (2)
- Tsimshian languages
The Tsimshianic languages are a family of languages spoken in northwestern British Columbia and in southern Alaska on Annette Island and Ketchikan. About 2,170 people of the ethnic Tsimshian population in Canada still speak the Tsimshian languages ; about 50 of the 1,300 Tsimshian people living in...
(3)
- Utian languages
Utian is a family of indigenous languages spoken in the central and north portion of California, United States. The Miwok and Ohlone peoples both spoke languages in the Utian linguistic group...
(5)
- Uto-Aztecan languages
Uto-Aztecan is a Native American language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas...
(North America & Mesoamerica) (31)
- Wakashan languages
Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca....
(7)
- Wintuan languages
Wintuan is a family of languages spoken in the Sacramento Valley of central Northern California.All Wintuan languages are severely endangered.-Family division:...
(1)
- Yokutsan languages
Yokutsan is an endangered language family spoken in the interior of Northern and Central California in and around the San Joaquin Valley by the Yokut people. The speakers of Yokutsan languages were severely affected by disease, missionaries, and the Gold Rush...
(1)
- Yukian languages (0)
- Yuman-Cochimí languages
Yuman-Cochimí is a family of languages spoken in Baja California and northern Sonora in Mexico and southern California and western Arizona in the United States.-Genetic relations:...
(10)
Central AmericaManagua
Guatemala City
San Salvador
San Pedro Sula
Panama City
San José, Costa Rica
Santa Ana, El Salvador
León
San Miguel|-|}...
and South AmericaSouth America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere...
- Alacalufan languages
The Alacalufan languages have not been definitely linked to any other American language family. Kakauhua is extinct and Kawésqar is highly endangered. - References :*...
(2)
- Arauan languages
Arawan is a family of languages spoken in western Brazil and Peru.-Family division:Arauan consists of 8 or 9 languages:--------§₳₭₳-External links:...
(8)
- Araucanian languages
The Araucanian languages, sometimes considered divergent dialects of a single language isolate, are a small language family of central Chile and neighboring areas of Argentina....
(2)
- Arawakan languages
The Arawakan languages are an indigenous language family of South America and the Caribbean....
(South America & Caribbean) (73)
- Arutani-Sape languages
The Arutani-Sape are an endangered language family that includes two languages which are mainly spoken in Brazil and Venezuela. They are almost extinct. They are only distantly related, but Kaufman finds the connection convincing....
(2)
- Aymaran languages
Aymaran is one of the two dominant language families of the central Andes, along with Quechuan....
(3)
- Barbacoan languages
Barbacoan is a language family spoken in Colombia and Ecuador.-Family division:Barboacoan consists of 6 languages:I. Northern-Genealogical relations:...
(7)
- Cahuapanan languages
The Cahuapanan languages include two languages, Chayahuita and Jebero. They are spoken by more than 11,300 people in Peru. Chayahuita is spoken by most of that number, but Jebero is almost extinct....
(2)
- Carib languages (29)
- Catacaoan languages
The Catacaoan languages or Tallán languages are an extinct family of three languages spoken in the Piura Region of Peru. The three languages in the family are:*Catacao or Katakao, once spoken around the city of Catacaos...
(0)
- Chapacura-Wanham languages
The Chapacuran languages are a nearly extinct Native American language family of South America. There are three living Chapacuran languages, which are spoken in the southeastern Amazon Basin of Brazil and Bolivia. The languages in the family are classified into the Madeira and Guapore groups...
(5)
- Chibchan languages
The Chibchan languages make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama...
(Central & South America) (22)
- Chimuan languages
Chimuan or Yuncan is a small extinct language family of northern Peru and Ecuador .-Family division:Chimuan consisted of 3 languages:...
(0)
- Choco languages
The Choco languages are a small family of Native American languages spread across Colombia and Panama.-Family division:Choco consists of perhaps eleven languages, three living...
(10)
- Chon languages
The Chon languages were spoken in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia. Two were known to exist - Selk'nam, which went extinct in 2003, and Tehuelche. The Selk'nam people were widely studied by anthropologists such as Martin Gusinde and Anne Chapman, throughout the 20th century; however, their language...
(2)
- Esmerelda-Yaruro (2)
- Guaicuruan languages
Guaicuruan is a language family spoken in northern Argentina, western Paraguay, and Brazil .-Family division:...
(a.k.a. Waikurian) (8)
- Hibito-Cholón (0)
- Hodï (2)
- Ge languages
The Jê languages are spoken by the Gê, a group of indigenous peoples in Brazil.-Family division:The language family is as follows:*Jaikó *Central Jê**Acroa**Xavante**Xerente...
(13)
- Jicaquean languages (Central America)
- Jirajaran languages
The Jirajaran languages are group of extinct languages once spoken in western Venezuela in the regions of Falcón and Lara. All of the Jirajaran languages appear to have become extinct in the early 20th Century.-Characteristics:...
(0)
- Jivaroan languages
Jivaroan is a small language family, or perhaps a language isolate, of northern Peru and eastern Ecuador.-Family division:Jivaroan consists of 4 languages:-Genetic relations:...
(4)
- Katembri-Taruma languages (0)
- Katukinan languages
-Katukinan languages:*Kanamarí*Katawixi*Katukína...
(3)
- Lencan languages (Central America)
- Lule-Vilela languages (1)
- Mascoian languages
The Mascoian languages are a small language family of Paraguay. They are part of the Mataco-Guaicuru proposal.The languages are:*Emok*Guana *Lengua...
(5)
- Mashakalian languages
The Maxakalían languages were first classified into the Gê languages. It was only in 1931 that Loukotka separated them from the Gê family. Alfred Métraux and Curt Nimuendaju Unkel considered the Maxakalían family isolated from others...
- Matacoan languages
Matacoan is a language family of northern Argentina, western Paraguay, and southeastern Bolivia.-Family division:...
(4)
- Misumalpan languages
The Misumalpan languages are a small family of Native American languages spoken on the east coast of Nicaragua and nearby areas. Joseph Greenberg considers them to constitute a subfamily of the nuclear Chibchan group, but his classification is generally rejected...
(Central America) (9)
- Mosetenan languages (1)
- Mura languages (1)
- Nambiquaran languages (5)
- Otomakoan languages
Otomakoan is a proposal linking three language families of the Amazon: The small Harákmbut family, the extinct Otomako-Taparita languages, and the Trumai language isolate....
? (3)
- Pano-Tacanan languages
Pano-Tacanan is a family of languages spoken in Peru, western Brazil, Bolivia and northern Paraguay. There are two branches, Panoan and Tacanan , with 33 languages.Most Panoan languages are spoken in either Peru or western Brazil; a few are in Bolivia...
(36)
- Peba-Yaguan languages
The Peba-Yaguan language family is located in the northwestern Amazon, but today Yagua is the only remaining spoken language of the family....
(2)
- Puinavean languages
The Nadahup languages, Makú languages, form a small language family in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. The name Makú is pejorative, being derived from an Arawakan word meaning "without speech"...
(Maku) (9)
- Quechuan languages
The neologism 'Quechuan' is synonymous with Quechua, the name of the most widely spoken Native American language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably some 6 to 8 million speakers...
(46)
- Salivan languages (2)
- Tequiraca-Canichana (2)
- Tucanoan languages
Tucanoan is a language family of Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru.-Family division:Tucanoan consists of 15 languages:...
(25)
- Tupi languages (70)
- Uru-Chipaya languages
Uru-Chipaya is an indigenous language family of Bolivia consisting of two closely related languages. They may be related to the Chimuan languages of Peru. They have no known living relatives though connections have been proposed to Arawakan or Mayan languages...
(2)
- Witotoan languages
Bora-Witóto is a proposal to unite the Bora and Witotoan language families of northeastern Peru , southwestern Colombia , and western Brazil...
(6)
- Xincan languages (Central America)
- Yabutian languages
The Yabutian languages are two similar moribund languages of Brazil. They appear to be members of the Macro-Je language family.-References:*Ribeiro, Eduardo & Hein van der Voort. 2008. "Nimuendajú was right: The inclusion of the Jabutí language family in the Macro-Jê stock." International Journal...
(2)
- Yanomam languages (4)
- Zamucoan languages
Zamucoan is a small language family of Paraguay and Bolivia .The family has hardly been studied by linguists .-Family division:Zamucoan consists of 2 languages:...
(2)
- Zaparoan languages
Zaparoan is an endangered language family of Peru and Ecuador with fewer than 100 speakers...
(7)
Central & South America
- Abishira
Abishira was a language spoken until some time in the 20th Century in Peru. There were between 50 and 80 speakers of the language in 1925. At that time it was spoken in Puerto Elvira located on Lake Vacacocha which is connected with the Napo River....
- Aikaná
Aikanã is an endangered language isolate spoken by about 200 people in Rondônia, Brazil. It is morphologically complex and has SOV word order. Aikanã uses a modified Latin alphabet.- Vowels :- Consonants :...
(Brazil: Rondônia)
- Andoque
The Andoque language is an aboriginal language spoken by a few hundred Andoque in Northern South America, and is in decline.In 2000, there were 610 speakers in the area of the Anduche River, downstream from Aracuara, Amazonas, Colombia; 50 were monolinguals. The language is no longer spoken in...
(Colombia, Peru)
- Betoi (Colombia)
- Camsá
Camsá is a language isolate of Colombia.-Genealogical relations:Camsá has been linked with various hypothetical phylum proposals including Macro-Chibchan....
(Colombia)
- Candoshi-Shapra
Candoshi-Shapra is an isolate indigenous American language spoken in western South America by several thousand native people, although these figures are dated. The language is spoken along the Chapuli, Huitoyacu, Pastaza, and Morona river valleys...
(Peru)
- Cayubaba (Bolivia)
- Cofán
The Cofán language is the language of the Cofán people, an indigenous group native to Napo Province northeast Ecuador and southern Colombia, between the Guamués River and the Aguarico River .Approximately 60% of Cofán speakers in Ecuador are literate in their...
(Colombia, Ecuador)
- Fulniô
- Guató (Brazil, Bolivia)
- Huaorani
The Huaorani language is a language isolate spoken by the Huaorani people, an indigenous group living in the Amazon rainforest between the Napo and Curaray Rivers...
(a.k.a. Sabela, Waorani, Waodani) (Ecuador, Peru)
- Irantxe
Irántxe is an indigenous American language that is spoken in Mato Grosso, Brazil by about 200 people. Linguists believe that it is possibly related to the Arawakan language family....
(Brazil: Mato Grosso)
- Itonama
-Vowels:Diphthongs: .-Consonants:The postalveolar affricates have alveolar allophones . Variation occurs between speakers, and even within the speech of a single person....
(Bolivia)
- Kapixaná (Brazil)
- Koayá (Brazil: Rondônia)
- Kukurá
- Leco
Leco is a language isolate that is spoken by about 20 individuals in areas east of Lake Titicaca, Bolivia. The Leco ethnic population is about 80. There have been reports that Leco may already be extinct....
(Bolivia)
- Mapudungun (Chile, Argentina)
- Movima
Movima is a language that is spoken by about 1400 of the Movima, a group of Native Americans that resides in Bolivia. It is considered a language isolate, as it has not been proven related to any other language.-Phonology:Movima has five vowels:...
(Bolivia)
- Omurano
Omurano is an extinct language from Peru that may be related to the Zaparoan language family. It is also known as Humurana, Roamaina, Numurana, Umurano, and Mayna. It became extinct in 1958.-External links:...
(Peru)
- Otí (Brazil: São Paulo) [extinct]
- Paez
Páez is a language isolate of Colombia spoken by Páez people in the central Andes region near Popayán...
(see also PaezanPaezan is a hypothetical language family of Colombia and Ecuador.-Proposed genealogical relations:...
)
- Pankararú (Brazil: Pernambuco)
- Puelche
The Puelche language is a nearly extinct language spoken in Argentina and already extinct in Chile, it is a distinct language from the related Pehuenche dialect of Mapudungun. There are perhaps 6 remaining speakers. It is also known as Gennaken, Pampa, and Northern Tehuelche....
(Argentina,Chile)
- Puquina
Puquina is an extinct language and language isolate, which was spoken by the ancient Inca in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca and in the north of what is now Chile....
(Bolivia) [extinct]
- Taushiro (Peru)
- Ticuna
Tïcuna is a language spoken by approximately 40,000 people in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. It is the native language of the Tïcuna people. Tïcuna is generally classified as a language isolate, but may be related to the extinct Yuri language...
(Colombia, Peru, Brazil)
- Timote
- Tiníwa
- Warao
Warao is a language isolate of the indigenous Warao people. It is the native language spoken by approximately 18000 people inhabiting the Orinoco River delta in northeastern Venezuela as well as small populations of speakers in western Guyana and Suriname....
(Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela)
- Yámana (a.k.a Yagan) (Chile)
- Yuracare
Yuracaré is an endangered language isolate of central Bolivia in Cochabamba and Beni departments spoken by the Yuracaré people....
(Bolivia)
- Yuri
Yurí is an extinct language of the Amazon previously spoken along a stretch of the Caquetá river in the Brazilian Amazon, extending slightly into Colombia. Very little is know about this language. Kaufman says that there is lexical evidence to support grouping Yurí with Ticuna in a Ticuna-Yurí...
(Colombia, Brazil)
- Yurumanguí
Yurumanguí is an extinct language of Colombia. It is known to us only through a short list of words and phrases recorded by Father Christoval Romero and given by him to Captain Sebastián Lanchas de Estrada, who included them in the report of his travels of 1768...
(Colombia)
North America
- Chimariko
Chimariko is an extinct language isolate formerly spoken in Trinity County in northwestern California by Chimariko peoples.-Genetic relations:...
(US: California)
- Chitimacha
The Chitimacha language is a language isolate historically spoken by the Chitimacha people of Louisiana, United States. It went extinct with the death of the last fluent speaker, Delphine Ducloux, in 1940....
(US: Louisiana)
- Coahuilteco
Coahuilteco was a language isolate that was spoken in southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. It was spoken by one tribe of a group of American Indian hunter-gatherers named the Quems.Coahuilteco is now extinct.-Consonants:...
(US: Texas, northeast Mexico)
- Cuitlatec
Cuitlatec, or Cuitlateco, is an extinct language of Mexico, formerly spoken by an indigenous people also known as Cuitlatec.-Classification:...
(Mexico: Guerrero) [extinct]
- Esselen
Esselen is a language isolate that was spoken by the Esselen Native Americans on the Central Coast of California, south of Monterey....
(US: California)
- Haida
The Haida language is the language of the Haida people. It contains eight vowels and well over 30 consonants. Linguist Edward Sapir classified Haida as one of the Na-Dené languages in 1915, a position later supported by others, notably Pinnow, Greenberg, Enrico, Ruhlen, Manaster Ramer, and Bengtson...
(Canada: British Columbia; US: Alaska)
- Huave
Huave is a language isolate spoken by the indigenous Huave people on the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The language is spoken in four villages on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the southeast of the state, by around 18,000 people...
(Mexico: Oaxaca)
- Karankawa (US: Texas) [extinct]
- Karok (a.k.a. Karuk) (US: California)
- Kootenai
The Kutenai language is named after and is spoken by some of the Kootenai Native American/First Nations people who are indigenous to the area of North America that is now Montana, Idaho, and British Columbia....
(Canada: British Columbia; US: Idaho, Montana)
- Natchez (US: Mississippi, Louisiana) (sometimes linked to Muskogean)
- P'urhépecha
P'urhépecha is a language isolate or small language family spoken by more than 100,000 P'urhépecha people in the highlands of the Mexican state of Michoacán...
(a.k.a. Tarascan) (Mexico: Michoacán)
- Salinan
The Salinan Native Americans lived in what is now the Central Coast of California, in the Salinas Valley. Said to have gone extinct by the Census of 1930, the Salinan Native Americans survived and are now in the process of applying for tribal recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.There...
(US: California)
- Seri
Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.-Classification:...
(Mexico: Sonora)
- Siuslaw
Siuslaw is the name of a Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Oregon, and can refer to:*Siuslaw , Native American tribe and the Siuslaw language they spoke*Siuslaw River, a river named for the tribe...
(US: Oregon)
- Takelma
Takelma was the language spoken by the Takelma people. It was first extensively described by Edward Sapir in his graduate thesis, The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon...
(US: Oregon)
- Timucua
Timucua is a language isolate formerly spoken in northern and central Florida, southern Georgia, and eastern Alabama by the Timucua people. Timucua was the primary language used in the area at the time of Spanish arrival, and linguistic and archaeological studies suggest that it may have been...
(US: Florida, Georgia)
- Tonkawa
The Tonkawa language was spoken in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico by the Tonkawa people. A language isolate, with no known related languages, Tonkawa is now extinct. Members of the Tonkawa tribe now speak only English.-Vowels:Tonkawa has 10 vowels:...
(US: Texas) [extinct]
- Tunica
The Tunica language was a language isolate spoken in what is now Louisiana in the United States by Native American Tunica peoples....
(US: Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas)
- Washo
The Washo language is an endangered Native American language isolate spoken by the Washo on the California–Nevada border in the drainages of the Truckee and Carson Rivers, especially around Lake Tahoe...
(US: California, Nevada)
- Yana
Yana is an extinct language isolate formerly spoken in north-central California between the Feather and Pit rivers in what is now Shasta and Tehama counties....
(US: California)
- Yuchi
The Yuchi language is the language of the Yuchi people living in the southeastern United States, including eastern Tennessee, western Carolinas, northern Georgia and Alabama, in the period of early European colonization. However, speakers of the Yuchi language were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma...
(US: Georgia, Oklahoma)
- Zuni
Zuni is a language of the Zuni people, indigenous to western New Mexico and eastern Arizona in the United States. It is spoken by around 9,500 people worldwide, especially in the vicinity of Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, and much smaller numbers in parts of Arizona.Unlike most indigenous languages in...
(a.k.a. Shiwi) (US: New Mexico)
Australia
- Enindhilyagwa
Enindhilyagwa is an Australian language isolate spoken by the Warnindhilyagwa people on Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia. A 2001 Australian government identified more than one thousand speakers of the language, although there are reports of as many as three thousand...
(AKA Andilyaugwa, Anindilyakwa)
- Laragiya
The Laragiya language is an Australian language isolate spoken by just six people near the city of Darwin in northern Australia as of 1983. It may now be extinct.Laragiya is not known to be related to any other language in the world....
- Minkin
The Minkin language is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language, perhaps a language isolate, of northern Australia.The classification of Minkin is uncertain, primarily due to a lack of data. It has been suggested that it may have been related to the Yiwaidjan or Tankic language families....
[extinct; perhaps a member of Yiwaidjan or Tankic]
- Ngurmbur
The Ngumbur language is an Australian language isolate spoken by just one person in Arnhem Land, northern Australia, as of 1981. It may now be extinct.Ngumbur is not known to be related to any other language...
(perhaps a member of Macro-Pama-Nyungan)
- Tiwi
Tiwi is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on the Tiwi Islands, within sight of the coast of northern Australia. It is one of about 10% of Australian languages still being learned by children....
(Melville and Bathurst Islands)
New Guinea
- Abinomn
The Abinomn language is a language isolate initially reported by Mark Donohue from Papua province, Indonesia. It is also known as Avinomen, Baso , and Foia. There are about 300 speakers.-Pronouns:The Abinomn pronouns are,-External links:*...
(Baso, Foia) (north Irian)
- Anêm
The Anêm language is a language isolate spoken in five main villages along the northwestern coast of New Britain island, Papua New Guinea: Malasoŋo , Karaiai, Mosiliki, Pudêlîŋ, Atiatu and Bolo...
(New Britain)
- Ata
The Ata language, also known as Pele-Ata or Wasi, is a language isolate spoken on New Britain island, Papua New Guinea. It may be related to the Anêm and Yélî Dnye isolates in a tentative Yele-West New Britain family. There are about 2000 speakers....
(Pele-Ata, Wasi) (New Britain)
- Busa
This article is about the Busa language of Papua New Guinea. For other things called "Busa", see BusaThe Busa language, also known as Odiai , is a language isolate in northwestern Papua New Guinea. There were only 244 speakers at the time of the 2000 census.-External links:*...
(Sandaun)
- Isirawa
The Isirawa language is a language isolate in Malcolm Ross' classification of Papuan languages that had been linked to the Dani languages within the Trans–New Guinea family by Stephen Wurm. It is spoken by about two thousand people on the north coast of Papua province, Indonesia. Ethnologue ...
(north Irian)
- Kol
The Kol language is a language spoken in eastern New Britain island, Papua New Guinea. There are about 4000 speakers.Kol appears to be a language isolate, though the possibility remains that it is distantly related to the poorly attested Sulka language....
(New Britain)
- Kuot
The Kuot language, or Panaras, is a language isolate, the only non-Austronesian language spoken on the island of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. There are about 2400 speakers, concentrated primarily on the northwest coast of the island...
(Panaras) (New Ireland)
- Massep
- Pyu
There are two languages called pyu.*Pyu language - Papua New Guinea, different from Piu*Pyu language - Myanmar, ancient...
- Sulka
The Sulka language is a possible language isolate scattered across the eastern end of New Britain island, Papua New Guinea. There are about 3000 speakers....
(New Britain)
- Taiap
Taiap is an endangered language isolate spoken by around a hundred people in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. It is being replaced by the national language and lingua franca Tok Pisin.The first European to come across Taiap was a German missionary in 1938...
(Gapun) (Sepik)
- Yalë
The Yalë language, also known as Nagatman, is a language isolate in northwestern Papua New Guinea. There are about 600 speakers....
(Nagatman) (Sandaun)
- Yawa
The Yawa languages, or Yapen, are a small family of two closely related Papuan languages, Yawa and Saweru, which are often considered to be divergent dialects of a single language...
(Geelvink Bay)
- Yélî Dnye
The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
(Yele) (Rennell Island)
- Yuri
The Yuri language, also known as Karkar, is a language isolate in the Papuan languages classifications of both Wurm and Ross. There are about a thousand speakers in Papua New Guinea along the Indonesian border.-External links:*...
(Karkar) (Sandaun)
Asia
- Ainu language
Ainu is an Ainu language spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
or languages (Japan, Russia) (like ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
or Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...
, the diversity within Ainu is large enough that some consider it to be perhaps up to a dozen languages while others consider it a single language with high dialectal diversity)
- Nivkh
Nivkh or Gilyak is a language spoken in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun , along the lower reaches of the Amur itself, and on the northern half of Sakhalin. 'Gilyak' is the Manchu appellation...
or Gilyak (Russia) (sometimes linked to Chukchi-KamchatkanThe Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages are a language family of northeastern Siberia. The family is also known as Chukchi-Kamchatkan.Less commonly encountered names for this family are Chukchian, Chukotian, Chukotan, Kamchukchee and Kamchukotic...
)
- Korean
Korean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. It was formerly written using Hanja, borrowed Chinese characters pronounced in the Korean...
(North & South Korea, China, USA) (sometimes linked to AltaicAltaic is a language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic language families . These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...
; its dialect JejuJeju dialect or Jeju language is the dialect used on the island of Jeju in Korea, with the exception of Chuja in former Bukjeju County area of Jeju City. It differs greatly from the dialects of the mainland, and preserves many archaic words which have since been lost in other Korean dialects...
is often considered a different language)
- Kusunda
The Kusunda or Ban Raja , known to themselves as the Mihaq or Myahq , are a tribe of former hunter-gatherers of the forests of western Nepal, who are now intermarried with neighboring peoples and settled in villages.The Kusunda are followers of animism, though Hindu overtones may be seen in their...
(Nepal)
- Nihali
Nihali, also known as Nahali or erroneously Kalto, is a language isolate spoken in west-central India by around 2,000 people out of an ethnic population of 5,000...
(India) (sometimes linked to MundaThe Munda languages are a language family spoken by about nine million people in central and eastern India and Bangladesh. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, generally placed in opposition to the Mon-Khmer languages of Southeast Asia, which means they are distantly...
)
- Burushaski
Burushaski is a language isolate . It is spoken by some 87,000 Burusho people in the Hunza, Nagar, Yasin, and parts of the Gilgit valleys in the Northern Areas in Pakistan and by about 300 Burusho people in Srinagar, India...
(Pakistan, India) (sometimes linked to YeniseianThe Yeniseian language family is spoken in central Siberia.-Family division:0...
)
- Elamite
Elamite is an extinct language spoken by the ancient Elamites. Elamite was an official language of the Persian Empire from the sixth to fourth centuries BC...
(Iran) [extinct] (sometimes linked to Dravidian)
- Sumerian
Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BCE . It was gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BCE , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary...
(Iraq) [extinct]
- Hattic
Hattic was a language spoken by the Hattians in Asia Minor between the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC. Scholars call this language 'Hattic' to distinguish it from the Hittite language--the Indo-European language of the Hittite Empire....
(Turkey) [extinct] (sometimes linked to Northwest CaucasianThe Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Abkhazo-Adyghean, or sometimes Pontic as opposed to Caspian , are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region, chiefly in Russia , the disputed territory of Abkhazia, and Turkey, with smaller communities scattered throughout the...
)
- Shompen
The Shompen are the indigenous people of the interior of Great Nicobar island, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Current population is estimated at approximately 400. They practice a hunter-gatherer subsistence economy. In keeping with the tropical climate of the...
(Nicobar Island) (little known; appears to be two languages)
Africa
- Hadza
Hadza is a language isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa...
(Tanzania)
- Sandawe
Sandawe or Sandawi is a tonal language spoken by about 40,000 Sandawe people in the Dodoma region of Tanzania. Language use is vigorous among both adults and children, with people in some areas monolingual. Sandawe has generally been classified as a Khoisan language since Albert Drexel in the...
(Tanzania) (may be related to KhoeThe Khoe languages are the largest of the non-Bantu language families indigenous to southern Africa. They are often considered to be a branch of a suspected Khoisan language family, and are known as Central Khoisan in that scenario. The nearest relative of the Khoe family appears to be the extinct...
)
Europe
- Basque
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is the mother tongue of approximately one fifth of Basques, 632,000 out of nearly 3,000,000...
(Spain, France) (related to extinct AquitanianThe Aquitanian language was spoken in ancient Aquitaine before the Roman conquest and, probably much later, until the Early Middle Ages....
)
Unclassified languages
Languages are considered unclassified either because, for one reason or another, little effort has been made to compare them with other languages, or, more commonly, because they are too poorly documented to permit reliable classification. Most such languages are extinct and most likely will never be known well enough to classify.
Europe
- Iberian
The Iberian language was the language of a people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian peninsula. The ancient Iberians can be identified as a rather nebulous local culture between the 7th century BC and the 1st century BC...
(Spain) [extinct]
- Tartessian
The Tartessian language , also known as southwestern or South Lusitanian is a paleohispanic language once spoken in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula: mainly in the south of Portugal , but also in Spain...
(Spain, Portugal) [extinct]
- North Picene
North Picene is an extinct language of eastern Italy that is known from a number of inscriptions dating from the 1st millennium BC, mostly from Picenum. It is written in a form of the Old Italic alphabet...
(Italy) [extinct]
Africa
- Ongota
Ongota is a moribund language of southwest Ethiopia. In 2008, it was said to be in a state of decline with only 6 elderly native speakers, the rest of their small village on the west bank of the Weito River having adopted the Tsamai language instead. The grammar follows a Subject Object Verb word...
(perhaps Afro-Asiatic)
- Gumuz
Gumuz is the language of the Gumuz people, who live along the border of Ethiopia and Sudan. Most Ethiopian speakers live in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region, although a group of 1,000 live outside the town of Welkite...
(perhaps Nilo-Saharan)
- Kwadi
Kwadi is an extinct Khoisan language spoken in the southwest corner of Angola. Three speakers were fluent in Kwadi in 1971, but as of 1981 it was thought to be extinct.Because Kwadi was poorly recorded, there is not much evidence with which to classify it...
(extinct; perhaps Khoe)
- Bangi-me
The Bangi-me language is spoken by 2000-3000 people who call themselves the Banga-na, in northern Mali among the Dogon. It shows no clear affinities with neighboring languages, and may be a language isolate, but pending further investigation it remains unclassified.The ISO 639-3 code is...
(ethnically Dogon)
- Dompo
- Mpre
Mpre is an unclassified language once spoken in the village of Butie in Ghana, near the confluence of the Black and White Voltas. It is known only from a 70-word list given in a 1931 article...
- Jalaa
Jalaa is an endangered language of northeastern Nigeria , of uncertain origins...
- Laal
Laal is an unclassified language spoken by 749 people in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River,...
- Meroitic
The Meroitic language was spoken in Meroë and the Sudan during the Meroitic period and went extinct about 400 CE. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: Meroitic Cursive, which was written with a stylus and was used for general record-keeping; and Meroitic Hieroglyphic, which was...
(extinct; variously thought to be Nilo-Saharan or Afro-Asiatic)
- Shabo
Shabo is an endangered language spoken by about 600 hunter-gatherers in southwestern Ethiopia, in the westernmost part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region. They live in three places in the Keficho Shekicho Zone: Anderaccha, Gecha, and Kaabo...
Asia
- Quti [extinct]
- Kaskian [extinct]
- Cimmerian [extinct]
South America
- Baenan
Baenan is a poorly attested language of Brazil. The last remaining speaker lived in Bahia, Brazil in 1940. The language of this speaker was associated with the Baenan language as the last members of the Baenan tribe lived in Paragaçú, Bahia, near where the language was attested...
(Brazil) [extinct]
- Culle
Culle, also known as Cullí and Ilinga, is a poorly attested extinct language of northern Peru. It is the original language of the regions of La Libertad, Cajabamba, and Pallasca...
(Peru) [extinct]
- Kunza
Kunza, also known as Likanantaí, Lipe, Ulipe, or Atacameño, is an extinct, unclassified language spoken in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and southern Perú by the Lickan-antay people, who have since shifted to Spanish.The last Kunza speaker was found in 1949, although some have been found...
(Chile, Bolivia, Argentina) [extinct]
- Gamela (Brazil: Maranhão) [extinct]
- Gorgotoqui
Gorgotoqui is a currently undocumented extinct language of the Chiquitanía region of the eastern Bolivian lowlands.During the period of the Jesuit missions to the Chiquitos, Gorgotoqui was the most numerous language of the area. It became a lingua franca and the sole language of the Jesuit mission...
(Bolivia) [extinct]
- Huamoé (Brazil: Pernambuco) [extinct]
- Kukurá (Brazil: Mato Grosso) [extinct]
- Malibu languages
The Malibu languages are a poorly attested group of extinct languages once spoken along the Magdalena River in Colombia. Material exists only for two of the numerous languages mentioned in the literature: Malibú and Mocana.-Classification:...
(Colombia) [extinct]
- Munichi
Munichi is a recently extinct language which was spoken in the village of Munichis, about 10 miles or 16 km West of Yurimaguas, Loreto Region, Peru. The last known mother-tongue speaker, Victoria Huancho Icahuate, died in the late 1990s, though some people remain in the village who know a few...
(Peru)
- Natú (Brazil: Pernambuco) [extinct]
- Sechura
The Sechura language, also known as Sek, is an extinct language spoken in the Piura Region of Peru, near the port of Sechura. It appears to have become extinct by the beginning of the 20th Century.-Classification:...
- Tarairiú (Brazil: Rio Grande do Norte)
- Tuxá (Brazil: Bahia, Pernambuco) [extinct]
- Xokó (Brazil: Alagoas, Pernambuco) [extinct]
- Xukurú (Brazil: Pernambuco, Paraíba) [extinct]
- Yurumanguí
Yurumanguí is an extinct language of Colombia. It is known to us only through a short list of words and phrases recorded by Father Christoval Romero and given by him to Captain Sebastián Lanchas de Estrada, who included them in the report of his travels of 1768...
(Colombia) [extinct]
North America
- Adai (US: Louisiana, Texas) [extinct]
- Alagüilac (Guatemala)
- Aranama-Tamique (US: Texas) [extinct]
- Atakapa
Atakapa is an extinct language isolate native to southwestern Louisiana and nearby coastal eastern Texas.-Geographic variation:There were two varieties of Atakapa :# Eastern# Western...
(US: Louisiana, Texas) [extinct]
- Beothuk
The Beothuk language was spoken by the indigenous Beothuk people of Newfoundland. As the Beothuk are extinct and few written accounts of their language exist, little is known about it...
(Canada: Newfoundland) [extinct]
- Calusa
The Calusa were a Native American group that lived on the coast and along the inner waterways of Florida's southwest coast. At the time of European contact, the Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture. Calusa territory reached from Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable, and may have included...
(US: Florida) [extinct]
- Cayuse
The Cayuse are a Native American tribe in the state of Oregon in the United States. The Cayuse tribe shares a reservation in northeastern Oregon with the Umatilla and the Walla Walla tribes as part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation...
(US: Oregon, Washington) [extinct]
- Cotoname
Cotoname is an extinct language isolate spoken by Native Americans indigenous to the lower Rio Grande Valley of northeastern Mexico and extreme southern Texas .-See also:*Indigenous languages of the Americas*Comecrudan languages...
(northeast Mexico; US: Texas) [extinct]
- Maratino (northeastern Mexico) [extinct]
- Naolan (Mexico: Tamaulipas) [extinct]
- Quinigua (northeast Mexico) [extinct]
- Solano
Solano is an unclassified extinct language formerly spoken in northeast Mexico and perhaps also in the neighboring U.S. state of Texas.Solano is known only from a 21-word vocabulary list that appears at the end of a 1703-1708 baptism book from the San Francisco Solano mission. Supposedly the...
(northeast Mexico; US: Texas) [extinct]
Mixed languages
- Michif
Michif is the language of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations women and fur trade workers of European ancestry...
, a mixture of FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
and CreeCree is the name for a group of closely-related Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories to Labrador, making it by far the most spoken aboriginal language in Canada...
, where the nouns and adjectives tend to be French (including agreement), and the polysynthetic verbs are entirely Cree. There are two simultaneous gender systems, French masculine/feminine as well as Cree animate/inanimate, and the Cree obviative (fourth personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
).
- Mednyj Aleut
Mednyj Aleut is a nearly extinct mixed language spoken on Bering Island. It is characterized by Aleut nouns and Russian verbs, each with the full inflectional complexity of the source languages...
, a mixture of RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
and AleutAleut is a language of the Eskimo-Aleut language family. It is the heritage language of the Aleut people living in the Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands, and Commander Islands. As of 2007 there were about 150 speakers of Aleut .- Dialects :Aleut is alone with the Eskimo languages in the...
, which retains Aleut verbs but has replaced most of the inflectional endings with their Russian equivalents.
- Cappadocian Greek
Cappadocian, also known as Cappadocian Greek or Asia Minor Greek, is a dialect of the Greek language, formerly spoken in Cappadocia . After the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s, Cappadocian speakers were forced to emigrate to Greece, where they were resettled in various...
, comprising mostly Greek root words, but with many TurkishTurkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other...
grammatical endings and Turkish vowel harmonyVowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on what vowels may be found near each other....
, and no gender.
- Mbugu
Mbugu, or Ma’a, is a mixed language of Tanzania.The Mbugu speak two divergent registers. One consists of an inherited South Cushitic vocabulary with Bantu morphology similar to that of Shambala and Pare. The other register is Bantu, with vocabulary closely related to Pare.-References:* Mous,...
or Ma’a: an inherited CushiticThe Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family spoken in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. They are named after the Biblical figure Cush by analogy with Shem's being the eponym of Semitic...
vocabulary with a borrowed BantuThe Bantu languages constitute a grouping belonging to the Niger-Congo family. This grouping is deep down in the genealogical tree of the Bantoid grouping, which in turn is deep down in the Niger-Congo tree. By one estimate, there are 513 languages in the Bantu grouping, 681 languages in Bantoid,...
inflectional system.
Possible examples include:
- Chiac, a mixture of Acadian French language and English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
- Wutunhua
Wutun, or Wutunhua , is a Chinese-Tibetan-Mongolian mixed language spoken by about 2,000 people of a branch of the Tu nationality in the eastern part of the Qinghai province in the west of China....
(a mixture of ChineseChinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and TibetanThe Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering South Asia, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh, Nepal,...
).
- Yeniche (a mixture of German
German is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
, YiddishYiddish is a non-territorial High German language of Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world...
, and Romani).
- Jopará
Jopará or Yopará is a colloquial form of Guaraní spoken in Paraguay which uses large numbers of Spanish loan words. Its name is from the Guaraní word for "mix."The majority of Paraguayans, particularly younger ones, speak some form of jopará....
, mixture of GuaraníGuaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí-Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by 88% of the population, with half of the...
and SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
, Spanish verbs are changed to match Guaraní phonologyPhonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system...
and conjugated following Guaraní patterns.
Creoles
Like mixed languages, the world's numerous creoles do not fit easily into language families.
Sign languages
The family relationships of sign languages are not well established, and many are isolates (cf.
WittmannHenri Wittmann is a Canadian linguist from Quebec. He is best known for his work on Quebec French.-Biography:Henri Wittmann was born in Alsatia in 1937...
1991).
Proposed language stocks
- Alarodian
The Alarodian languages are a proposed language family that encompasses the Northeast Caucasian or Dagestan languages and the extinct Hurro-Urartian languages.- History of the concept :...
- Almosan (= Sapir's Algonkin-Wakashan)
- Almosan-Keresiouan
- Algonkian-Gulf Algonquin, Algonkin
- Amerind
Amerind is a higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in his 1987 book . In this book Greenberg proposed that all of the indigenous languages of the Americas belong to one of three families...
- Andean
- Aztec-Tanoan
- Austric
The Austric language superfamily is a large theoretical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. It includes the Austronesian language family of Taiwan, the Malay Archipelago, Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the...
- Chibchan-Paezan
- Coahuiltecan
Coahuiltecan is a general name for a group of people who previously lived in the southern Texas region near the Rio Grande river. The earliest Spanish explorers to make contact with the natives in this region describe a prosperous and friendly people...
- Dene-Caucasian
The Dené-Caucasian language family is a proposed language superfamily containing at least the Caucasian, Yeniseian, Burushaski, Sino-Tibetan, and Na-Dené languages...
- Equatorial
- Eurasiatic
Eurasiatic is a hypothetical language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg that groups all of the language families historically spoken in northern Eurasia into a single higher-order family, with the sole exception of the Yeniseian languages, spoken in part of Siberia, but including the Eskimo-Aleut...
- Gulf
Gulf is a proposed native North American language family composed of the Muskogean languages, along with four extinct language isolates. The four isolates are the Atakapa language [aqp], Chitimacha language [ctm], Natchez language [ncz] and Tunica language [tun].Gulf was proposed as a language...
- Hokan
The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families spoken in California and Mexico. In nearly a century since Edward Sapir first proposed the "Hokan" hypothesis, little additional evidence has been found that these families were related to each other...
- Hokan-Siouan
In linguistics, Hokan-Siouan is a proposed family of languages that includes various Native American languages. It is not generally accepted by linguists. It includes the Hokan family.-See also:Classification schemes for indigenous languages of the Americas...
- Ibero-Caucasian
The term Ibero-Caucasian was proposed by Georgian linguist Arnold Chikobava for the union of the three language families that are specific to the Caucasus area, namely* South Caucasian ...
- Indo-Pacific
Indo-Pacific is a language family proposed in 1971 by Joseph Greenberg. It groups all of the languages of New Guinea into a single language family, except for those belonging to the Austronesian family. These languages were previously believed to belong to a large number of different language...
- Keresiouan
- Kongo-Saharan
- Macro-Carib
- Macro-Ge
- Macro-Khoisan
- Macro-Mayan
Macro-Mayan is a proposal linking the clearly established Mayan family with neighboring families that show similarities to Mayan.The first proposals of this hypothesis were made by Norman McQuown in 1942 who linked Mayan and Mixe-Zoquean...
- Macro-Panoan
Macro-Panoan is a hypothetical proposal linking four language families of Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. The Pano-Takanan connection is generally accepted. Kaufman also finds the Moseten-Chon connection fairly convincing. However, the deeper connection between these two groups is...
- Macro-Siouan
The Macro-Siouan languages are a proposed language family that would include the Siouan, Iroquoian, and Caddoan families. Most linguists remain unconvinced that these languages share a genetic relationship, and the existence of a Macro-Siouan language family remains a subject of...
- Macro-Tucanoan
- Mosan
Mosan is a hypothetical language family consisting of the Salishan, Wakashan, and Chimakuan languages of the Pacific Northwest region of North America. It was proposed by Edward Sapir in 1929 in the Encyclopædia Britannica...
- Na-Dene (Sapir's)
- Nostratic
Nostratic is a proposed language family that includes many of the indigenous language families of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. The term "Nostratic" roughly translated means "our language"...
- Nostratic-Amerind
- Penutian
Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian stock or phylum has been the subject of debate among specialists. Even the...
- Pontic
- Thai-Kadai
- Proto-World
The term Proto-Human is one of a number of terms sometimes used to designate the hypothetical most recent common ancestor of all the world's spoken languages. It has been used by the linguists Harold Fleming and John Bengtson ....
- Quechumaran
Quechumaran is a language-family proposal that unites Quechua and Aymara. Quechuan languages, especially those of the south, share a large amount of vocabulary with Aymara. Kaufman finds the proposal reasonably convincing, but many historical linguists believe the similarities may be due to...
- Ural-Altaic
The Ural-Altaic languages constitute a formerly proposed language family uniting the Uralic and Altaic language families. This now discredited proposal is also known as "Uralo-Altaic".-History of the hypothesis:...
- Uralo-Siberian languages
Uralo-Siberian is a hypothetical language family consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut. It was proposed in 1998 by Michael Fortescue, an expert in Eskimo-Aleut and Chukotko-Kamchatkan, in his book Language Relations across Bering Strait...
- Yuki-Wappo languages
Yuki-Wappo is a small extinct language family of western California consisting of two distantly related languages. It has not been fully demonstrated, and is not universally accepted.-Family division:The family consists of...
See also
- Language family
A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics...
- Auxiliary language
- Constructed language
A planned or constructed language—known colloquially or informally as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
- Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes an extinct language.The total number of contemporary languages in the world is not known...
- Extinct language
An extinct language is a language which no longer has any speakers. Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages: no longer spoken as a main language.-Language loss:...
- List of language families by percentage of speakers in mankind
External links