A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic") relationship with other living languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common to any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single language. Commonly cited examples include Basque, Ainu, Burushaski, and Korean, though in each case a minority of linguists claim to have demonstrated a relationship with another language (see Dene-Caucasian, Karasuk, and Altaic, for example).
With context, a language isolate may be understood to be relatively isolated. For instance, Albanian, Armenian, and Greek are commonly called 'Indo-European isolates'. While part of the Indo-European family, they do not belong to any established branch (like the Romance, Indo-Iranian, Slavic or Germanic branches), but instead form independent branches of their own. However, without such a disambiguating context, "isolate" is understood to be in the absolute sense.
Some languages have become isolates in historical times, after all their known relatives went extinct. The Pirahã language of Brazil is one such example, the last surviving member of the Mura family. Others, like Basque, have been isolates for as long as their existence has been documented. The opposite also occurs: languages once seen as isolates may be reclassified as small families. This happened with Japanese when it was recognized that certain Japanese "dialects", such as Okinawan, were languages in their own right, and the Japonic family was formulated.
Language isolates may be seen as a special case of unclassified languages,languages that remain unclassified even after extensive efforts. If eventually such efforts do prove fruitful, a language previously considered an isolate may no longer be considered one; this has happened with the Yanyuwa language of northern Australia, which has recently been placed in the Pama-Nyungan family. Since linguists do not always agree on whether a genetic relationship has been demonstrated, it is often disputed whether a language constitutes a true isolate or not.
The term "genetic relationship" is meant in the genealogical sense of historical linguistics, which groups most languages spoken in the world today into a relatively small number of families, according to reconstructed descent from common ancestral languages. For example, English is related to other Indo-European languages and Mandarin is related to many other Sino-Tibetan languages. By this criterion, each language isolate constitutes a family of its own, which explains the exceptional interest that these languages have received from linguists.
Looking for relationships
It is possible, though speculative, that all languages spoken in the world today are related by descent from a single ancestral tongue. The established language families would then be only the upper branches of the genealogical tree of all languages, or, equally, lower progeny of a parent tongue. For this reason, language isolates have been the object of numerous studies seeking to uncover their genealogy. For instance, Basque has been compared with every living and extinct Eurasian language family known, from Sumerian to South Caucasian, without conclusive results.
There are some situations in which a language with no ancestor might arise. For example, if deaf parents were to raise a group of hearing children who have no contact with others until adulthood, they might develop a verbal language among themselves and keep using it later, teaching it to their children, and so on. Eventually, it could develop into the full-fledged language of a population. This happened in the case of Nicaraguan Sign Language, where deaf children with no language were placed together and developed a new language. With oral languages, this is not very likely to occur at any one time but, over the tens of thousands of years of human pre-history, the likelihood of this occurring at least a few times increases. There are also creole languages and constructed languages such as Esperanto which do not descend directly from a single ancestor but have become the language of a population; however, they do take elements from existing languages.
Extinct isolates
Caution is required when speaking of extinct languages as isolates. Despite its great age, Sumerian is known well enough to be able to recognize modern relatives, if they existed. However, many extinct languages 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. Etruscan, for example, is sometimes claimed to be Indo-European; although most historical linguists believe this is unlikely, it is not yet possible to demonstrate it one way or the other. Similar situations pertain to many extinct isolates of America, such as Beothuk and Cayuse. A language thought to be an isolate may turn out to be relatable to other languages once enough material is recovered, but material is unlikely to be recovered if a language was not written.
Sign language isolates
Whereas most linguists expect that spoken isolates like Basque are related to other languages, but at a time depth we cannot reconstruct, a large number of sign languages have arisen independently, without any ancestral language, and thus are true language isolates. The most famous of these is Nicaraguan Sign Language, but this is simply 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, and seven sign languages, none with any known connection to anything else on the planet. [1] The disregard shown to such languages, which students may be punished for using and which the schools may deny even exist, means it is not feasible to try to list sign language isolates the way oral language isolates are listed in the tables below.
Sign languages have also developed outside schools, in communities with high incidences of deafness. Such languages include Kata Kolok in Bali, Adamorobe Sign Language in Ghana, Urubú Sign Language in Brazil, several Mayan sign languages, and half a dozen sign languages of the hill tribes in Thailand, such as Ban Khor Sign Language. These and more are all presumed isolates or small local families.
List of oral 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.
Note that the Status column reflects more or less the classification of "Language Types" in ISO 639-3. "Vibrant" is classified "Living" or sometimes "Endangered" in ISO, depending on ongoing efforts to preserve the language, and "Moribund" is classified as "Endangered" in ISO, but may already be "Extinct".
Data for several African languages is not sufficient for classification. In addition, a few of the languages within Nilo-Saharan may turn out to be isolates upon further investigation.
Spoken on Hokkaid? Island, Japan, and formerly also in southern Sakhalin, northern Honshu, and the Kuril Islands. Written in modified katakana. Historically a small closely related family of its own.
Spoken on the Andaman Islands. Related to other Great Andamanese languages which are now extinct. Most linguists see a connection in the Andamanese family, but some propose closer ties with West Papuan.
Known in its own language as Euskara; no known living relatives; found in the Basque region of France and Spain. Aquitanian is commonly regarded as related to or a direct ancestor of Basque. Some linguists have claimed similarities with various languages of the Caucasus, especially because of their ergative case system, but such resemblances are superficial, as a quarter of the world's languages are ergative. Other linguists have proposed a relation to Iberian, while others point to a relationship with the Afro-AsiaticBerber language group of North Africa.
Language of the ancient Etruscans in northwestern Italy; not well understood at present. Some have suggested Etruscan is in fact an Anatolian language, but better accepted is the suggestion of a Tyrrhenian family consisting of Etruscan, Lemnian, and possibly Raetic or Camunic.
Was spoken in Texas, United States. Proposed member of Coahuiltecan family, later under Sapir's Hokan phylum. These hypotheses are currently disfavored.
Spoken in Chile and Argentina. Also known as Araucano or Araucanian. Considered a family of 2 languages by Ethnologue. Variously part of Andean, macro-Panoan, or macro-Waikuruan proposals.
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 Institute). (Updated version of the map in Goddard 1996). ISBN 0-8032-9271-6.
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).
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