Language isolate#List of language isolates by continent
{{Short description|Language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with other languages}}
{{Distinguish|Isolating language}}
A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages.{{Cite journal|last=Campbell|first=Lyle|date=2010-08-24|title=Language Isolates and Their History, or, What's Weird, Anyway?|journal=Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society|language=en|volume=36|issue=1|pages=16–31|doi=10.3765/bls.v36i1.3900|issn=2377-1666|doi-access=free}}{{Citation |last1=Salaberri |first1=Iker |title=State of the art of research on language isolates: Introduction |date=2025-01-16 |work=Investigating Language Isolates: Typological and diachronic perspectives |pages=2–19 |editor-last=Salaberri |editor-first=Iker |url=https://benjamins.com/catalog/tsl.135.intro |access-date=2025-01-17 |series=Typological Studies in Language |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company |language=en |doi=10.1075/tsl.135.intro |isbn=978-90-272-1899-5 |last2=Krajewska |first2=Dorota |last3=Santazilia |first3=Ekaitz |last4=Zuloaga |first4=Eneko |editor2-last=Krajewska |editor2-first=Dorota |editor3-last=Santazilia |editor3-first=Ekaitz |editor4-last=Zuloaga |editor4-first=Eneko|url-access=subscription }} Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi in Oceania are all examples of such languages. The exact number of language isolates is yet unknown due to insufficient data on several languages.p. xi. Lyle Campbell. 2018. "Introduction". Language Isolates edited by Lyle Campbell, pp. xi–xiv. Routledge.
One explanation for the existence of language isolates is that they might be the last remaining member of a larger language family. Such languages might have had relatives in the past that have since disappeared without being documented, leaving them an orphaned language. One example is the Ket language spoken in central Siberia, which belongs to the wider Yeniseian language family; had it been discovered in recent times independently from its now extinct relatives, such as Yugh and Kott, it would have been classified as an isolate. Another explanation for language isolates is that they arose independently in isolation and thus do not share a common linguistic genesis with any other language but themselves. This explanation mostly applies to sign languages that have developed independently of other spoken or signed languages.{{Cite journal|last=Urban|first=Matthias|date=April 2021|title=The geography and development of language isolates|journal=Royal Society Open Science|language=en|volume=8|issue=4|pages=rsos.202232, 202232|doi=10.1098/rsos.202232|pmid=33996125|pmc=8059667|bibcode=2021RSOS....802232U|issn=2054-5703}}
Some languages once seen as isolates may be reclassified as small families if some of their dialects are judged to be sufficiently different from the standard to be seen as different languages. Examples include Japanese and Georgian: Japanese is now part of the Japonic language family with the Ryukyuan languages, and Georgian is the main language in the Kartvelian language family. There is a difference between language isolates and unclassified languages, but they can be difficult to differentiate when it comes to classifying extinct languages. If such efforts eventually do prove fruitful, a language previously considered an isolate may no longer be considered one, as happened with the Yanyuwa language of northern Australia, which has been placed in the Pama–Nyungan family.{{Cite book|last=Bradley|first=John|title=Wuka nya-nganunga li-Yanyuwa li-Anthawirriyarra = Language for us, the Yanyuwa Saltwater People: a Yanyuwa encyclopaedia|volume =1|date=2016|others=Jean F. Kirton, Elfreda MacDonald|isbn=978-1-925003-67-3|location=North Melbourne, Vic|oclc=957570810}} Since linguists do not always agree on whether a genetic relationship has been demonstrated, it is often disputed whether a language is an isolate.
Genetic relationships
{{Main|Genetic relationship (linguistics)}}
A genetic relationship is when two different languages are descended from a common ancestral language.{{Cite book|last=Thomason|first=Sarah Grey|title=Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics|date=1988|others=Terrence Kaufman|isbn=0-520-07893-4|location=Berkeley|oclc=16525266}} This is what makes up a language family, which is a set of languages for which sufficient evidence exists to demonstrate that they descend from a single ancestral language and are therefore genetically related. For example, English is related to other Indo-European languages and Mandarin Chinese is related to other Sino-Tibetan languages. By this criterion, each language isolate constitutes a family of its own. This is not to be confused with family-level isolates, which are not language isolates themselves but form a primary branch of a language family, such as Armenian within Indo-European and Paiwan within Austronesian.
In some situations, a language with no ancestor can arise. This frequently happens with sign languages—most famously in the case of Nicaraguan Sign Language, where deaf children with no language were placed together and developed a new language.{{Cite journal|last1=Senghas|first1=Ann|last2=Coppola|first2=Marie|date=July 2001|title=Children Creating Language: How Nicaraguan Sign Language Acquired a Spatial Grammar|url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9280.00359|journal=Psychological Science|language=en|volume=12|issue=4|pages=323–328|doi=10.1111/1467-9280.00359|pmid=11476100|s2cid=9978841|issn=0956-7976|url-access=subscription}}
Extinct isolates
Caution is required when speaking of extinct languages as language isolates. Despite their great age, Sumerian and Elamite can be safely classified as isolates, as the languages are well enough documented that, if modern relatives existed, they would be recognizably related.{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages|date=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|editor=Roger D. Woodard|isbn=0-521-56256-2 |oclc=59471649}} A language thought to be an isolate may turn out to be related to other languages once enough material is recovered, but this is unlikely for extinct languages whose written records have not been preserved.
Many extinct languages are very poorly attested, which may lead to them being considered unclassified languages instead of language isolates. This occurs when linguists do not have enough information on a language to classify it as either a language isolate or as a part of another language family.
Isolates v. unclassified languages
Unclassified languages are different from language isolates in that they have no demonstrable genetic relationships to other languages due to a lack of sufficient data. In order to be considered a language isolate, a language needs to have sufficient data for comparisons with other languages through methods of historical-comparative linguistics to show that it does not have any genetic relationships.
Many extinct languages and living languages today are very poorly attested, and the fact that they cannot be linked to other languages may be a reflection of our poor knowledge of them. Hattic, Gutian, and Kassite are all considered unclassified languages, but their status is disputed by a minority of linguists.{{Cite book|last=Mallory|first=J. P.|title=The Tarim mummies: ancient China and the mystery of the earliest peoples from the West, with 190 illustrations, 13 in color|date=2000|publisher=Thames & Hudson|others=Victor H. Mair|isbn=0-500-05101-1|location=New York, N.Y.|oclc=43378559}} Many extinct languages of the Americas such as Cayuse and Majena may likewise have been isolates.{{Cite book|last=A.|first=Leitch, Barbara|title=A Concise dictionary of Indian tribes of North America|date=1979|publisher=Algonac, MI|oclc=868981165}} Several unclassified languages could also be language isolates, but linguists cannot be sure of this without sufficient evidence.
Sign language isolates
{{Further|Deaf-community sign language|Village sign language}}
A number of sign languages have arisen independently, without any ancestral language, and thus are language isolates. These include Nicaraguan Sign Language, a well-documented case of what has happened in schools for the deaf in many countries. In Tanzania, for example, there are seven schools for the deaf, each with its own sign language with no connection to any other language.{{Cite book|last=T.|first=Muzale, H. R.|title=Kamusi ya Lugha ya Alama ya Tanzania (LAT) = Tanzanian Sign Language (TSL) dictionary: Kiswahili-TSL-English|date=2004|publisher=Languages of Tanzania Project, University of Dar es Salaam|isbn=9987-691-02-1|oclc=67947374}} Sign languages have also developed outside schools, in communities with high incidences of deafness, such as Kata Kolok in Bali, and half a dozen sign languages of the hill tribes in Thailand including the Ban Khor Sign Language.{{Cite journal|last=de Vos|first=Connie|date=March 2011|title=Kata Kolok Color Terms and the Emergence of Lexical Signs in Rural Signing Communities|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2752/174589311X12893982233795|journal=The Senses and Society|language=en|volume=6|issue=1|pages=68–76|doi=10.2752/174589311X12893982233795|hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0012-BB5A-6|s2cid=218839277 |issn=1745-8927|hdl-access=free}}{{Cite journal|last=Nonaka|first=Angela M.|date=July 2009|title=Estimating size, scope, and membership of the speech/sign communities of undocumented indigenous/village sign languages: The Ban Khor case study|url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0271530909000202|journal=Language & Communication|language=en|volume=29|issue=3|pages=210–229|doi=10.1016/j.langcom.2009.02.004|url-access=subscription}}
These and more are all presumed isolates or small local families, because many deaf communities are made up of people whose hearing parents do not use sign language, and have manifestly, as shown by the language itself, not borrowed their sign language from other deaf communities during the recorded history of these languages.
Reclassification
Some languages once seen as isolates may be reclassified as small families because their genetic relationship to other languages has been established. This happened with Japanese and Ryukyuan languages, Korean and Koreanic languages, Atakapa and Akokisa languages, Tol and Jicaque of El Palmar languages, and the Xincan Guatemala language family in which linguists have grouped the Chiquimulilla, Guazacapán, Jumaytepeque, and Yupiltepeque languages.
List of language isolates by continent
Below is a list of known language isolates, arranged by continent, along with notes on possible relations to other languages or language families.
The status column indicates the degree of endangerment of the language, according to the definitions of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.{{cite web |title=UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger |url=http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/ |website=unesco.org |publisher=UNESCO |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210214005202if_/https://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/ |archive-date=2021-02-14 |access-date=13 February 2021}} "Vibrant" languages are those in full use by speakers of every generation, with consistent native acquisition by children. "Vulnerable" languages have a similarly wide base of native speakers, but a restricted use and the long-term risk of language shift. "Endangered" languages are either acquired irregularly or spoken only by older generations. "Moribund" languages have only a few remaining native speakers, with no new acquisition, highly restricted use, and near-universal multilingualism. "Extinct" languages have no native speakers, but are sufficiently documented to be classified as isolates.
=Africa=
{{Further|Languages of Africa#Unclassified languages}}
With few exceptions, all of Africa's languages have been gathered into four major phyla: Afroasiatic, Niger–Congo, Nilo-Saharan and Khoisan.Blench, Roger. 2017. African language isolates. In Language Isolates, edited by Lyle Campbell, pp. 176–206. Routledge. However, the genetic unity of some language families, like Nilo-Saharan,{{Cite web |last=Starostin|first=George|title=The Nilo-Saharan hypothesis tested through lexicostatistics: current state of affairs |website=Academia |url=https://www.academia.edu/21582071|language=en}}{{Citation|last1=Harald Hammarström|title=glottolog/glottolog: Glottolog database 4.2.1|date=2020-04-16|chapter-url=https://zenodo.org/record/3754591|doi=10.5281/zenodo.3754591|access-date=2020-08-12|last2=Robert Forkel|last3=Martin Haspelmath|last4=Sebastian Bank|chapter=Linguistics}} is questionable, and so there may be many more language families and isolates than currently accepted. Data for several African languages, like Kwisi, are not sufficient for classification. In addition, Jalaa, Shabo, Laal, Kujargé, and a few other languages within Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic-speaking areas may turn out to be isolates upon further investigation. Defaka and Ega are highly divergent languages located within Niger–Congo-speaking areas, and may also possibly be language isolates.{{cite web|url=http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Niger-Congo/General/Niger-Congo%20an%20alternative%20view.pdf|title=Niger-Congo: an Alternative View|last=Blench|first=Roger}}
=Asia=
=Oceania=
Current research considers that the "Papuasphere" centered in New Guinea includes as many as 37 isolates.{{Cite book| publisher = De Gruyter| isbn = 978-3-11-029525-2| pages = 1–20 |editor=Bill Palmer | last = Palmer| first = Bill| title = The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area| chapter = Language families of the New Guinea Area| location = Berlin, Boston |access-date=2020-08-03| date = 2017| chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=v2VCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA9 | doi=10.1515/9783110295252-001}} (The more is known about these languages in the future, the more likely it is for these languages to be later assigned to a known language family.) To these, one must add several isolates found among non-Pama-Nyungan languages of Australia:
=Europe=
=North America=
=South America=
See also
References
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Bibliography
- Campbell, Lyle, ed. 2017. Language Isolates. Routledge.
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN |0-19-509427-1}}.
- Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. {{ISBN |0-16-048774-9}}.
- Goddard, Ives. (1999). Native Languages and Language Families of North America (rev. and enlarged ed. with additions and corrections). [Map]. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press (Smithsonian Institution). (Updated version of the map in Goddard 1996). {{ISBN |0-8032-9271-6}}.
- Grimes, Barbara F. (Ed.). (2000). Ethnologue: Languages of the world, (14th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. {{ISBN |1-55671-106-9}}. (Online edition: [http://www.ethnologue.com/ Ethnologue: Languages of the World]).
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN |0-521-23228-7}} (hbk); {{ISBN |0-521-29875-X}}.
- Salaberri, Iker, Krajewska, Dorota, Santazilia, Ekaitz & Zuloaga, Eneko (eds.). (2025). Investigating Language Isolates. Typological and Diachronic Perspectives. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. {{ISBN|9789027218995|9789027246295}} {{doi|10.1075/tsl.135}}
- Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978–present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1–20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1–3, 16, 18–20 not yet published).