World's major language families
Distribution of the world's major language families.
A family of languages is a group of languages with a common historical origin and phylogenetically related, that is, they seem to derive from a more ancient language or proto-language (mother tongue).
Families originate when a language, called "proto-language of the family", gives rise to different languages through a process of dialectal diversification. The languages of a family are usually unintelligible between each other, although in most cases they retain phonetic and grammatical similarities. When the similarities between the languages are clear, it is possible to reconstruct their common origin, and even the proto-language from which they derive, through the methods of historical linguistics.
A family of languages is a group of languages with a common historical origin and phylogenetically related, that is, they seem to derive from a more ancient language or proto-language (mother tongue).
Families originate when a language, called "proto-language of the family", gives rise to different languages through a process of dialectal diversification. The languages of a family are usually unintelligible between each other, although in most cases they retain phonetic and grammatical similarities. When the similarities between the languages are clear, it is possible to reconstruct their common origin, and even the proto-language from which they derive, through the methods of historical linguistics.
