List of language families

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This article is a list of language families. This list only includes primary language families that are accepted by the current academic consensus in the field of linguistics; for language families that are not accepted by the current academic consensus in the field of linguistics, see the article "List of proposed language families".

Contents

List of language families

Spoken language families


Sign language families

The family relationships of sign languages are not well established due to a lagging in linguistic research, and many are isolates (cf. Wittmann 1991). [4]

Family NameLocationNumber of
French Sign Europe, the Americas, Francophone Africa, parts of AsiaOver 50
British Sign United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa 4–10
Arab Sign Much of the Arab World 6–10
Japanese Sign Japan, Korea, Taiwan 3
German Sign Germany, Poland, Israel 3
Swedish Sign Sweden, Finland, Portugal 3
Chinese Sign China (including Hong Kong and Macau)2

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Language family</span> Group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor

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The Danish Sign Language family comprises three languages: Danish Sign Language, Norwegian Sign Language and Icelandic Sign Language. It itself is a sub-language family within the larger French Sign Language family.

References

  1. "Glottolog 5.0 -". glottolog.org. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  2. "What are the largest language families?". Ethnologue. May 25, 2019.
  3. "North Caucasian". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on July 2, 2016. Retrieved July 17, 2016.
  4. Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement" (PDF). Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée (in French). 10 (1): 215–288.