Unclassified language
Encyclopedia
Unclassified languages are languages whose genetic affiliation has not been established by means of historical linguistics
. If this state of affairs continues after significant study of the language and efforts to relate it to other languages, as in the case of Basque
, it is termed a language isolate
; an unclassified language is therefore one which may belong to an established family once better data or research is available. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding influence of language contact
. Some poorly known extinct languages, such as Gutian
, are simply unclassifiable.
An example of a language that has caused multiple problems for classification is Mimi of Decorse
in Chad
. This language is only attested in a single word list collected ca. 1900. At first it was thought to be a Maban language, because of similarities to Maba, the first Maban language to be described. However, as other languages of the Maban family were described, it became clear that the similarities were solely with Maba itself, and the relationship was too distant for Mimi to be related specifically to Maba and not equally to the other Maban languages. The obvious similarities are therefore now thought to be due to borrowings from Maba, which is the socially dominant language in the area. When such loans are discounted, there is much less data to classify Mimi with, and what does remain is not particularly similar to any other language or language family. Mimi might therefore be a language isolate, or perhaps a member of some other family related to Maban in the proposed but as-yet undemonstrated Nilo-Saharan phylum. It would be easier to address the problem with better data, but no-one has been able to find speakers of the language again.
It also happens that a language may be unclassified within an established family. That is, it may be obvious that it is, say, a Malayo-Polynesian language, but not clear in which branch of Malayo-Polynesian it belongs. When a family consists of many similar languages with a lot of confusing contact, a large number of languages may be effectively unclassified. Families where this is a substantial problem include Malayo-Polynesian, Bantu
, Pama–Nyungan, and Arawakan.
Reasons for being unable to classify a language within any family at all include:
Absence of data, e.g.:
Paucity of data, e.g.:
Not closely related to its neighbors, and not commonly examined due to paucity of data, e.g.:
Much of the vocabulary is close to established families, but basic vocabulary is problematic and suggests a different origin, e.g.:
Not closely related to any other language, and academic consensus on its more distant relations not yet established, e.g.:
Also, languages whose very existence either presently or in the past is dubious fall into this category by default, e.g.:
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
. If this state of affairs continues after significant study of the language and efforts to relate it to other languages, as in the case of Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, it is termed a language isolate
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
; an unclassified language is therefore one which may belong to an established family once better data or research is available. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding influence of language contact
Language contact
Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...
. Some poorly known extinct languages, such as Gutian
Gutian language
The Gutian language was spoken by the Gutians or Guteans, an ancient people who lived in the territory between the Zagros and the Tigris, present-day Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan, around 2100 BCE, and who briefly ruled over Sumer....
, are simply unclassifiable.
An example of a language that has caused multiple problems for classification is Mimi of Decorse
Mimi of Decorse
Mimi of Decorse, also known as Mimi of Gaudefroy-Demombynes and Mimi-D, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled "Mimi" that was collected ca. 1900 by G. J. Decorse and published by Gaudefroy-Demombynes. Joseph Greenberg classified it as a Maban language, like the rather...
in Chad
Chad
Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
. This language is only attested in a single word list collected ca. 1900. At first it was thought to be a Maban language, because of similarities to Maba, the first Maban language to be described. However, as other languages of the Maban family were described, it became clear that the similarities were solely with Maba itself, and the relationship was too distant for Mimi to be related specifically to Maba and not equally to the other Maban languages. The obvious similarities are therefore now thought to be due to borrowings from Maba, which is the socially dominant language in the area. When such loans are discounted, there is much less data to classify Mimi with, and what does remain is not particularly similar to any other language or language family. Mimi might therefore be a language isolate, or perhaps a member of some other family related to Maban in the proposed but as-yet undemonstrated Nilo-Saharan phylum. It would be easier to address the problem with better data, but no-one has been able to find speakers of the language again.
It also happens that a language may be unclassified within an established family. That is, it may be obvious that it is, say, a Malayo-Polynesian language, but not clear in which branch of Malayo-Polynesian it belongs. When a family consists of many similar languages with a lot of confusing contact, a large number of languages may be effectively unclassified. Families where this is a substantial problem include Malayo-Polynesian, Bantu
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
, Pama–Nyungan, and Arawakan.
Reasons for being unable to classify a language within any family at all include:
Absence of data, e.g.:
- Nam languageNam languageLalou, Marcelle . “Sur la langue « nam ».” Journal Asiatique 231: 453.Thomas, Frederick William . “The Nam Language.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 3: 630-634....
(SinoChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
-TibetanTibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
frontier) - Sentinelese languageSentinelese languageSentinelese is the unknown language of the Sentinelese people of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Islands, India. It is presumably a distinct Andamanese language, but how closely it may be related to other languages of those families is unknown...
(spoken by the SentineleseSentineleseThe Sentinelese are one of the Andamanese indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal. They inhabit North Sentinel Island which lies westward off the southern tip of the Great Andaman archipelago...
of the Andaman IslandsAndaman IslandsThe Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
in IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
) – no contact for 300 years, and not a single word is known - Weyto languageWeyto languageThe Weyto language is believed to be an extinct language formerly spoken in the Lake Tana region of Ethiopia by the Weyto, a small group of hippopotamus hunters who now speak Amharic....
(EthiopiaEthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
)
Paucity of data, e.g.:
- Bung languageBung languageThe Bung language is a nearly extinct language of Cameroon spoken by 3 people at the village of Boung on the Adamawa Plateau. A wordlist collected for it shows its strongest resemblance to be with the Ndung dialect of Mambiloid language Kwanja, although that may simply be because this has become...
(CameroonCameroonCameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
) - KujargeKujargé languageThe Kujargé language is spoken in seven villages in Chad near Jebel Mirra and in Sudan in villages scattered along the lower Wadi Salih and Wadi Azum. It is estimated to have about 1000 speakers . The name is derived from Sudanese Arabic kujur "sorcerer", because of their reputation for witchcraft...
(Chad) - Lufu languageLufu languageThe Lufu language of Nigeria is a language still spoken mostly by older adults among the Lufu people of the Takum Local Government Authority, Taraba State; its speakers have mostly shifted to Jukun. It is reported to have been close to Bete and Bibi...
(Nigeria) - Luo language of AttaLuo language (Atta)The Luo language is an unclassified language spoken in a section of the Atta region of Cameroon. It is a critically endangered language, with only one speaker remaining as of 1995. Ethnologue calls it "nearly extinct," but admits that it is highly likely that this language is extinct....
(NigeriaNigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
; not to be confused with Luo language of Uganda and Kenya) - Mawa language of BauchiMawa language (Nigeria)Mawa is an extinct language of Nigeria. It was apparently different from a language of Chad also known as Mawa, and so is unclassified....
(NigeriaNigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
; not to be confused with the Mawa languageMawa language (Chad)Mawa is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in central Chad.- References :* **...
of ChadChadChad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
)
Not closely related to its neighbors, and not commonly examined due to paucity of data, e.g.:
- Bangi-meBangi-meThe Bangime language, or in full , is spoken by some 1500 ethnic Dogon in seven villages in southern Mali, who call themselves the . Long known to be highly divergent from Dogon languages, it was first proposed as a possible isolate by Blench...
(MaliMaliMali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
) - Jalaa languageJalaa languageJalaa Centúúm or Cen Tuum is an endangered language of northeastern Nigeria , of uncertain origins...
(NigeriaNigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
) - Mpre languageMpre languageMpre Mpra is a language once spoken in the village of Butie in Ghana, near the confluence of the Black and White Voltas, that has been difficult to classify...
(GhanaGhanaGhana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
) - Shompen languagesShompen languagesThe Shompen languages are spoken on Great Nicobar Island in the Indian union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean south of Burma....
(IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
) - Kwaza languageKwaza languageKwaza is an endangered, unclassified language spoken by the Kwaza people of Brazil. there were only 25 known speakers living in close proximity with neighbouring speakers of the Aikanã and Nambikwaran languages, though over half of these were children.- Vowels :* All vowels, except , may be...
(BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
)
Much of the vocabulary is close to established families, but basic vocabulary is problematic and suggests a different origin, e.g.:
- EngganoEnggano languageThe Enggano language, or Engganese, is the language of Enggano Island off the southwestern coast of Sumatra.Although adjacent to Austronesian languages, Enggano has not been established as Austronesian; it may instead be a language isolate with Austronesian borrowing. Much of the basic vocabulary...
(SumatraSumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
) - LaalLaal languageLaal is an unclassified language spoken by 749 people in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River,...
(ChadChadChad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
) - BayotBayot languageBayot is a language of southern Senegal, southwest of Ziguinchor in a group of villages near Nyassia, in northwestern Guinea-Bissau, along the Senegalese border, and in The Gambia....
(SenegalSenegalSenegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
)
Not closely related to any other language, and academic consensus on its more distant relations not yet established, e.g.:
- OngotaOngota languageOngota is a moribund language of southwest Ethiopia. In 2008, it was said to be in a state of decline with only 6 elderly native speakers, the rest of their small village on the west bank of the Weito River having adopted the Tsamai language instead. The grammar follows a Subject Object Verb word...
(EthiopiaEthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
) - ShaboShabo languageShabo is an endangered language spoken by about 600 hunter-gatherers in southwestern Ethiopia, in the westernmost part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region. They live in three places in the Keficho Shekicho Zone: Anderaccha, Gecha, and Kaabo...
(EthiopiaEthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
)
Also, languages whose very existence either presently or in the past is dubious fall into this category by default, e.g.:
- Oropom languageOropom languageOropom is a dubious and, if real, almost certainly extinct African language, purportedly once spoken in northeastern Uganda and northwestern Kenya between the Turkwel River, Chemorongit Mountains, and Mount Elgon, by the Oropom people...
(UgandaUgandaUganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
) - Imraguen languageImraguen languageThe Imraguen or Imeraguen language is spoken by approximately one thousand members of an Imraguen fishing tribe in the Banc d'Arguin National Park on the Atlantic coast of Mauritania. According to Gerteiny , it is "a strange version of Hassaniyya restructured on an Azêr base"; Hassaniyya is an...
(MauritaniaMauritaniaMauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
) - Nemadi languageNemadi languageThe Nemadi are small hunting tribe of eastern Mauritania. Their language is according to some sources a dialect of Hassaniyya, according to other a mixture of Zenaga, Azer and Hassaniyya...
(MauritaniaMauritaniaMauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
) - Rer BareRer BareThe Rer Bare are a tribe in Ethiopia's eastern Ogaden region on the Shabele River, near Somalia, who currently speak Somali...
language of EthiopiaEthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
(extinct, if it existed) - Wutana languageWutana languageA hypothetical Wutana language was mentioned in early editions of the Ethnologue, but has now been removed. The inclusion of Wutana in the Ethnologue was based on two sentences in Temple :and...
(NigeriaNigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
) - Malakhel (AfghanistanAfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
) - Mukha-Dora (IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
) - AariyaAariya languageAariya is an apparently spurious language of Madhya Pradesh, India.According to a submission made in 2007 to the ISO 639-3 Registration Authority which resulted in having language code withdrawn, the only reference for the language was a 1970 work entitled A bibliographical Index of the Lesser...
(India)
See also
- Language isolateLanguage isolateA language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
- List of language families (including isolates and unclassified languages)
- List of unclassified languages according to the Ethnologue