language families
Subject:
Human Geography [1]
Tags:
Linguistics [4]
Cultural history [5]
Language family [6]
Tree model [9]
Germanic languages [10]
Proto-language [11]
Genetic relationship [12]
Comparative method [14]
Social Issues [15]
language families [16]
A?language family?is a group of?languages?related through?descent?from a common ancestor, called the?proto-language?of that family. The term 'family' comes from the?tree model?of language origination in?historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a biological?family tree, or in a subsequent modification, to species in a?phylogenetic tree?of evolutionary?taxonomy. No actual biological relationship between speakers is implied by the metaphor.