Talk:Language isolate

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What about Hungarian? I seem to remember that Hungarian is thought to be related only (and this is controversial) to Japanese, and if Japanese is an isolate, then Hungarian would necessarily be also (at least until the two were proven to be related). Kadin2048 04:59, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No, Hungarian is related to Finnish and Estonian. Adam Bishop 04:57, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Uralic languages (Hungarian, Finnish etc.) have been popularily connected with Altaic languages (Japanese, Turkish etc.) forming a Ural-Altaic language group. This theory did propose a genetic connection between Japanese and Hungarian, but is now defunct. Please refer to the respective articles for more info. himasaram

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[edit] Japanese

Strictly speaking japanese is not isolate, but belongs to Japonic language family together with Ryukyuan and Okinawan languages.--Kulkuri 23:02, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

But the Japonic languages page includes in its first paragraph the admission that it may be merely a sprachbund, and Japanese is generally considered to be an isolate in the general linguistic community. UnDeadGoat
No, the sprachbund cited is Altaic-Japonic, not Japonic itself. Japanese is considered an isolate because it's often considered a single language with "dialects", much as Chinese is, for social rather than linguistic reasons. Japanese proper has enough diversity to be considered more than one language based on mutual intelligibility tests; the Luchuan (Ryukyuan) languages are even more diverse, and even the most conservative linguistic analysis would classify these two as separate languages. And no one questions the relationship between Japanese and Luchuan, it's just too transparent. I would hazard a guess that Japonic has approximately the diversity of one of the younger branches of Indo-European. --kwami 06:26, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Good point Kwamikagami.... Japanese really can not be considered a language isolate, not with language such as Okinawan still alive and spoken by thousands on a daily basis. I suggest Japanese be removed from this article.

--User:harald 07:15, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps there could be a separate section for "Small families conventionally regarded as isolates", including languages such as Japanese. There are also some small families in which only one language is still spoken, such as Ket or Pirahã. These languages all deserve to be mentioned here, since they are widely referred to as isolates, but I think there is a clear difference between them and, say, Basque or Sumerian, which have no proven relatives, alive or dead. Chamdarae 12:15, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Is Okinawan really Japonic? Japanese/Ryukyuan are closely related and may have been identical not too far in the past. Japanese, with its regional dialects appears to be an isolate! This is a huge mystery the importance of which cannot be exaggerated. Japanese should not be omitted in this article due to a categorization technicality.Vendrov (talk) 11:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Okinawan is very obviously Japonic. That's a bit like asking if Serbian is really Slavic. (Well, maybe not that close!) — kwami (talk) 17:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hadza and Sandawe

These are listed on their own pages as Khoisan languages, but the Khoisan page says they are other languages. Anyone know for sure? -phma 14:55, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The Khoisan family is rather tentative. Most linguists expect that the three (or perhaps four) Southern African families will prove to be related to each other, but Sandawe and especially Hadza are iffier. There really isn't any good reason for including Hadza in Khoisan; it was put there primarily because it has clicks and isn't obviously related to anything else. Part of the problem is that these langages are very poorly described. --kwami 06:42, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] first two paragraphs contradict

It seems like the definition in the 1st paragraph contradicts with the statement in the 2nd that some languages became isolates in recent times. I hope someone can sort this out. What is the critical criterium - 1) not related to any living language, or 2) no known genetic relationship to any other language (living or dead)? ike9898 15:33, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

"Language isolate" has no precise definition. Context will have to disambiguate. People classify Basque as an isolate despite the fact that it's most likely related to (extinct) Aquitanian; similarly Etruscan and Rhaetian, though both of those are extinct. However, if a language was classified as part of a family and only later its relatives died out, as is the case with Piraha in the Muran family, then it might not be considered an isolate. Consider also Japanese, which is frequently called an isolate despite being a small language family. The term "isolate" is as fuzzy as the term "language" itself. --kwami 06:36, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Another example of a case like Japanese, is the Chimakuan family which is often called an isolate, even though it consists of two languages, Chemakum and Quileute.
The term is also used refer to single members of a particular branch of a larger grouping (i.e. a stock or phylum) which has families at its other branches. So, for example, Bella Coola is an isolate within the Salish(an) family (which has also the Tsamsoan subfamily, Interior Salish family, etc.). For better or for worse, all of these usages exist. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 00:25, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

[edit] Native American languages

Am I the only one reacting to all native American languages listed as language isolates? Wouldn't they be classified as isolated languages (as being spoken only in reservations) rather than language isolates with no genetic connection to any other languages? I'm not sure because I'm no expert on these languages. It'd be nice if somebody could comment on this. ;-) himasaram

Hi.
No, all of the languages on the list are, as of the most current research, isolates with no known relations to any other family or language. The North American ones are according to Goddard (1996) & Mithun (1999). Central & South are according to Campbell (1997).
Many of these languages became extinct a good while ago before accurate data was collected (due to the unfortunate political practices of the past). Often times having only a small list words is not enough to determine any kind of genetic relationship. In other cases, such as with many of the South American isolates, enough data has simply not been collected yet (at least to the knowledge of Campbell). You can probably expect the number of isolates in South America to decrease over time.
As the article says, language isolates may be related but the relationship is undemonstrated. This is true of any language or language family. So, English may be related to Arabic, but whatever connection there may be between these two (and this connection would have to be very, very remote) has not been convincingly "proven" to the linguistic community.
Regarding North America, there are three big language family proposals that you should be aware of:
Penutian and Hokan are due to Edward Sapir and his predecessors. Amerind is a proposal by Joseph H. Greenberg that considers all languages in America to a part of one stock excepting the Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene families. Greenberg's proposal would, then, consider there to only three families with probably no isolates at all. Penutian is currently undemonstrated although most linguists find this hypothesis to be very promising. Hokan is less certain—some languages may be related, but others are probably not. If Penutian and Hokan are valid, then the number of isolates may reduced slightly. Amerind is not accepted by most Native American specialists.
I would guess that if you wait 25 years or so the issue of Penutian & Hokan will be better known, as will the situation of South American languages. However, I should also mention that the Americas are extremely linguistically diverse areas (for instance, only in the Americas does there occur all 6 word order types). The diversity of the Americas is rivaled only by places like Southeast Asia and Indonesia. Peace. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 14:52, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)
Superb explanation, Ish_ishwar. Keep up the good work! -Himasaram 21:38, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Wouldn't unclassified language be a more appropriate place for the ones for which inadequate data (or none) is the only reason? - Mustafaa 23:02, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Good point. But I personally don't feel confident enough to make the distinction between an unclassified language and a language isolate... -Himasaram 23:26, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hi. Yes, I think you can make a distinction between these two categories. I am using a kind of loose definition (an as-yet genetically unaffiliated single-member language family ?). So, making the distinction would involve an evaluation of the documentation status of these languages, and I guess that we could have a kind of confidence rating of the status. For example, Zuni could an isolate with a 80% (?) certainity. Baenan (a.k.a. Baeña) could be an isolate with a 0% certainty which would be, in other words, an unclassified language (Kaufman 1994:70 says that "this language is too poorly known for even Gr[eenberg] to dare classifying it"; I cant find it in Ethnologue). As far as evaluating all of the languages, I find it easier to just say that they are not known to be related to other languages. Anyway, I was just trying to put (quickly) all of these language names somewhere on the internet since many are probably unrepresented here in cyberspace. That's all. I guess, you are requesting me to work harder :) peace. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 23:57, 2005 Jun 3 (UTC)
Your intentions are admirable, Ish_ishwar. My only concern was that the list on this page was totally dominated by Native American languages. Perhaps the easiest way for you, is to create a separate list on this page or on a separate page, for these isolated/unclassified American languages? -Himasaram 18:27, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Yukaghir family

By definition, no "family" qualifies as a "language isolate." Will be looking to delete that inclusion barring user input in the next week or so.67.170.176.203 14:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Korean

This article clearly suggests that Korean is a language isolate, but it is related to Japanese, and they are both part of the Japonic language group, which is part of the Uralic-Altaic language family.Thomasiscool 14:13, 27 August 2006 (UTC)Thomasiscool

I don't have great insight into it, but I do know that any such link is disputed rather than established fact. Basic grammar forms are different, and Korean is not considered a Japonic language on the Wikipedia page. What are the links between Korean and Japanese to which you refer? Dekimasu 07:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Korean is clearly not Japonic, though it may be related at a deeper level. (The evidence for a connection is not strong enough for it to be widely accepted.) Ural-Altaic is no longer accepted even by long rangers (at least in Russia and the USA), as it appears to reflect a purely typological similarity. kwami 08:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


Why is Korean listed as vibrant as opposed to living? A language with 78 million speakers that's the official language of 2 countries is definitely living. Basque is living and it has fewer speakers and no nation to call it's own. Unless "Vibrant" is more alive than "Living" on the scale of how alive a language is, than I don't get it. (Aspiring Linguist) 8:22 p.m. PDT 28 September 2006

I think vibrant is supposed to be more than living, although it isn't clear at all from the context of the article. But any way I have changed all instances of vibrant to living, The distinction between the two is not obvious and I don't know of a general linguistic classification of vibrant languages in contrast to living languages. Maunus 08:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Charles Berlitz classifies Korean as an Altaic language in his book Native Tongues, and Altaic includes Japanese.Thomasiscool 13:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)Thomasiscool

He does but the Altaic family and particularly the inclusion of japanese and Korean in it is not generally accepted. Also Charles Berlitz is not known for his contributions to Historical linguistics and does not constitute a reliable source to the linguistic history of Korean or any other language. Maunus 13:47, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] North Picene

What about North Picene? There seems to be very little information on it, but from what I understand it's not considered to be Italic and only possibly Indo-European. Fingon 18:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Unclassified isn't the same as an isolate. — kwami (talk) 08:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pirahã

This article says that Pirahã is "endangered" but the main Pirahã article says it is not, arguing that "language use is vigorous and the Pirahã community is monolingual". Paul Koning 16:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that any language with less than 200 speakers can be called endangered, even if not facing immediate extinction. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 21:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sign language isolates

Shouldn't sign language isolates have a separate category? They're currently separated by continent, but maybe we ought to have a "sign language" category all to its own for ease of use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Graymornings (talk • contribs) 00:54, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

There's no way to list SL isolates, though. Tanzania alone has seven; for many countries we simply have no idea. So yes, I think they should be split off into their own section. kwami 02:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not too familiar with Wikipedia tables, so if someone could volunteer to do this (given consensus), that'd be great. Graymornings 15:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ainu in Honshu

For some reason, Ebizur has repeatedly deleted all references to the Ainu in Honshu, saying it's equivalent to Sasquatch. The Ainu population of Honshu is common knowledge, and we can come up with dozens of references. Race, Ethnicity and Migration in Modern Japan (Weiner 2004), for one, but plenty of others. — kwami (talk) 08:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make sense for each entry in those tables to have one reference? I notice a "references needed" flag above it. That way edit wars could be avoided by pointing to a cited source. Paul Koning (talk) 15:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree. In fact I think it is highly problematic that lists seem to be exempt to the high standards for references that apply to articles.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 16:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)