Classification of Languages

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This article describes the principles underlying the classification of languages in this encyclopedia. Where possible, a genetic classification is used, that is, one in which the languages are grouped in families on the basis of descent from a common ancestor. In the ideal case, the successive splittings of the protolanguage can be represented by a branching tree diagram. However, features of languages can be spread from one language to another, and this diffusion can obscure genetic relatedness. When linguists are not in a position to reconstruct the relationship between languages, they tend to resort to lexicostatistics, whereby percentages of common roots are simply counted using a list of ‘basic’ words, which are assumed to be relatively resistant to borrowing. The article concludes with a summary of the actual classification.

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Barry J Blake is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and Monash. He was Foundation Professor of Linguistics at La Trobe University from 1988 until his retirement in 2003. He is the author of 12 books, including Language typology (1981) (with G. Mallinson), Australian Aboriginal grammar (1987), Relational grammar (1990), and Case (1994, 2001). His research interest is in comparative and historical linguistics, especially in relation to Australian languages.

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