Protolanguage: Which means + Examples Defined

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Since most languages had been fashioned earlier than written historical past started, we don’t at all times know the way they began — or how they branched into the hundreds of languages that exist at this time. So, how can we study extra about how languages began?

Linguists attempt to reply this query by connecting trendy languages with prehistoric protolanguages. When you can’t study a protolanguage on Rosetta Stone, you may study languages descended from protolanguages. Learn how protolanguages give us extra details about the languages spoken around the globe at this time and the way these protolanguages reveal extra concerning the foundations of languages as we perceive them.

What’s a protolanguage?

A protolanguage is outlined as a hypothetical ancestor language for contemporary languages, usually known as daughter languages. It comes from the Greek phrase prôtos, which implies “first,” indicating {that a} protolanguage is the primary language.

Protolanguages are reconstructed from associated elements of languages, resembling grammar, vocabulary, and linguistic patterns. They symbolize a language’s first levels earlier than being influenced by neighboring cultures and languages to shift into distinctive new languages. Since protolanguages are prehistoric and hypothetical, you received’t discover a lot proof of them besides as linguistic theories. 

Frequent traits of protolanguages embrace:

• restricted linguistic complexity
• restricted vocabulary
• no current audio system
• no written literature or texts
• no recognized pronunciation

Take into consideration protolanguages the best way you concentrate on genetics. Chances are you’ll not be capable to identify your ancestors from one thousand years in the past, though you understand they exist. Should you wished to write down a narrative about them, you might use the widespread traits from your loved ones to explain a hypothetical ancestor. As an alternative of traits like brown hair and blue eyes, protolanguages are related by traits like widespread phrases and grammatical options.

Protolanguage vs. language household

Linguists take into consideration protolanguages in genetic phrases, though language itself isn’t genetic. You’ll have heard of language households, also referred to as genetically associated languages. Language households are teams of languages that stem from the identical protolanguage — that’s, they share a language ancestor.

For instance, you’ll have a cousin in your loved ones who’s carefully associated to you and one other cousin who’s very distantly associated to you. You’d all share that very same hypothetical ancestor, who would have traits that hyperlink all three of you. That’s how language households work: They’re languages related by widespread traits that hyperlink again to a hypothetical protolanguage.

You’ll be able to often inform which language households are associated to their protolanguages. Proto-Austronesian is the ancestor of languages within the Austronesian language household, for instance, whereas Turkic languages could be traced again to Proto-Turkic.

Checklist of widespread protolanguages

Protolanguages are principally prehistoric, with Proto-Afroasiatic estimated to have been spoken between 10,000 and 20,000 years in the past. That’s why there aren’t any written data of protolanguages to substantiate how people spoke them. 

However because of the tireless efforts of archaeolinguists and linguistic anthropologists, we will join most trendy languages to their seemingly protolanguages. A number of examples of protolanguages with generally spoken daughter languages embrace:

Examples of protolanguages

Some protolanguages have many daughter languages related by widespread traits. Proto-Indo-European is the ancestor of over 150 Indo-European languages spoken by three billion individuals around the globe at this time, whereas there are round 1,400 trendy Niger-Congo languages associated to Proto-Niger-Congo. Discover out extra about protolanguages that join the commonest languages spoken at this time.

Proto-Afroasiatic

Proto-Afroasiatic is the ancestor to trendy languages primarily spoken within the Center East and Northeast Africa. A few of its daughter languages are additionally protolanguages, together with Proto-Semitic, the ancestor of modern-day Arabic and Hebrew. 

As a result of Proto-Afroasiatic is without doubt one of the oldest protolanguages, few of its traits have survived in its descendant languages. Nonetheless, some parts of Proto-Afroasiatic could be present in languages spoken at this time, together with vowel adjustments in phrase formation and current consonants.

Proto-Austronesian

Ancestor language to many cultures dwelling in island nations within the Pacific, together with the Philippines and Taiwan, Proto-Austronesian was a wide-ranging protolanguage. Its daughter protolanguages embrace Proto-Philippine (ancestor to modern-day Tagalog) and Proto-Micronesian. 

Proto-Austronesian has a number of surviving syntactical traits, together with patterns of grammatical change with particles and affixes. You’ll be able to see these traits in modern-day Tagalog, in addition to Malay and different Polynesian languages.

Proto-Dravidian

Over 215 million individuals communicate Dravidian languages in South Asia. These languages come from Proto-Dravidian, a protolanguage whose descendents embrace Tamil and Kannada. 

As a result of Proto-Dravidian is a comparatively latest protolanguage, linguists can identify a lot of its traits based mostly on language adjustments all through totally different Dravidian languages. For instance, we all know that Proto-Dravidian has 5 vowels with lengthy and brief sounds, 16 consonants (together with a variable consonant), and a monosyllabic root system that features suffixes however not affixes. 

Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor language of the Indo-European language household, was primarily spoken all through Europe and South Asia earlier than the emergence of its daughter languages. Latin-based Romance languages like Spanish, Italian, and French, in addition to Germanic languages like English and German, all descended from Proto-Indo-European.

Extra daughter languages of Proto-Indo-European embrace Russian (a part of the Slavic language household), Hindi, and Armenian. Traits of Proto-Indo-European are evident in lots of of those languages, together with three verb elements, temper inflections, and gendered adjectives.

Proto-Niger-Congo

Round 85% of the African inhabitants speaks a Niger-Congo language descended from prehistoric Proto-Niger Congo. Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo, and Bantu languages spoken all through Africa are all daughter languages of Proto-Niger Congo.

Of the traits shared by many languages within the Niger-Congo language household, a system of noun courses is the simplest one to see. Proto-Niger-Congo seemingly had the same noun class system, as its daughter languages are inclined to have many noun courses (as many in 40 noun courses within the Atlantic department of the language household).

Proto-Sino-Tibetan

Proto-Sinitic and Proto-Tibeto-Burman are two reconstructed descendants of Proto-Sino-TIbetan, a protolanguage spoken in modern-day East Asia. In the present day, its daughter languages fall into the Sinitic department (which incorporates Mandarin, Cantonese, and different Chinese language languages) and the Tibeto-Burman department (which incorporates Tibetan and Burmese).

Linguists don’t imagine Proto-Sino-Tibetan was a tonal language like a lot of its daughter languages. Nonetheless, they do suppose traits of its vocabulary and typological options nonetheless join the languages at this time.

Proto-Turkic

Uzbek, Turkish, and Azerbaijani are all daughter languages of Proto-Turkic, which was seemingly spoken in Central Asia (round modern-day Türkiye). Each Proto-Turkic and its descendants have a particular vowel concord, which means that each one the vowels in a phrase are in the identical subclass.

Many descendants of Proto-Turkic are agglutinative languages, which means that they alter phrase which means by including totally different affixes. Linguists aren’t certain if Proto-Turkic shares this trait, although it did seemingly have further plural suffixes added to nouns.

What’s a language isolate?

If a protolanguage is an ancestor to trendy languages, a language isolate is a language and not using a household. It’s not carefully associated sufficient to different languages to be in the identical language household, and sometimes, language isolates are the one daughter languages of their very own protolanguages.

Examples of language isolates embrace:

• Basque
• Korean
• Bangi me
• Tiwi
• Cofán

Japanese is commonly thought-about a language isolate as a result of it’s the one main language descended from Proto-Japonic. Nonetheless, it’s carefully associated sufficient to close by Ryukyuan languages that some linguists wouldn’t contemplate it a language isolate.

What’s Proto-Human?

Is there one language that each different language comes from? The reply is sure — probably. Proto-Human (additionally known as Proto-World and Proto-Sapiens) is a theorized protolanguage spoken by early people round 50,000 years in the past. 

Linguists imagine that Proto-Human could have been spoken in East Africa and unfold into close by civilizations as the primary spoken language. They cite subject-object-verb (SOV) phrase order as one of many foremost attributes shared by world languages, suggesting the existence of 1 foremost protolanguage because the ancestor to each language on Earth.

Nonetheless, the speculation of a Proto-Human language stays extremely debated within the linguistic world. And like all protolanguages, there is no such thing as a textual proof of Proto-Human, making it solely helpful as a device to grasp trendy languages and the best way they grew into their present formations.