What Is an Agglutinative Language? Definition and 5 Examples

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Each language has a unique manner of conveying that means. Some languages want an entire sentence to show an concept, whereas others can do it in a single phrase (ever hear the phrase Muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine?). 

These languages are known as agglutinative languages, and there are extra of them than you may assume. Study which languages are agglutinative, how one can inform, and whether or not you already communicate one!

What’s agglutination?

The phrase “agglutination” comes from the Latin agglutinare, that means “to attach collectively.” That’s precisely what agglutinative languages do. They glue morphemes—the smallest unit of that means in any language—onto a root phrase. 

For instance, take a look at the phrase “agglutination”:

• ag- (prefix): to
• glutin (root phrase): stick collectively
• -ation (suffix): the state of

Whenever you put all of them collectively, “agglutination” means “the state of sticking collectively.” In agglutinative languages, including morphemes modifications greater than the that means of the phrase. Every morpheme in an agglutinative language has its personal that means and grammatical operate, permitting the phrase to operate as a whole phrase or sentence.

Traits of agglutinative languages

Many languages have agglutinative traits, however they’re not all grouped into the identical morphological class. Extremely agglutinative languages usually share the next qualities:

• longer phrases with a excessive variety of morphemes
• only a few irregular verbs
• predictable phrase meanings
• morphemes solely have one that means and performance
• many idioms to convey extra complicated meanings

Affixes in agglutinative languages can convey a phrase’s honorific (formality), verb tense, temper, quantity, individual, specificity, or negation. Whenever you add many various affixes to a phrase, you’ll be able to create a selected that means!

Listing of extremely agglutinative languages

Over 300 million individuals communicate agglutinative languages world wide. Most of them communicate a language within the Ural-Altaic language household, named after the Altai and Ural Mountain areas between Europe and Asia. Every language has its personal traits, however all of them share agglutinative traits as properly.

Turkish

Turkish is a typical agglutinative language that modifications the that means and performance of a phrase by including morphemes. Take the longest Turkish phrase

Muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine, which suggests “As should you had been a kind of whom we might not be capable of render unsuccessful.” It provides 17 affixes to the basis phrase muvaffak (profitable) to create a very new—albeit unusual—that means!

Check out how gitmek, the Turkish phrase for “go,” modifications verb tense and that means based mostly on the affixes added.

Japanese

Many language learners discover that it’s not troublesome to be taught Japanese, because of its easy and predictable grammar patterns. Whenever you perceive the weather of an agglutinative language, and why Japanese is classed this fashion, chances are you’ll wish to be taught Japanese your self!

Totally different Japanese morphemes can add info to a phrase, together with negation, a well mannered tone, a conditional tense, or an honorific diploma. Discover how the verb “discuss” modifications that means and grammatical operate after we add further affixes.

Korean

As one of many languages with probably the most phrases, Korean is likely one of the more difficult languages for English audio system to be taught. However studying to communicate Korean isn’t too difficult should you perceive its agglutinated grammatical sample. 

Korean affixes modifying phrases to point verb tense, time, and quantity. Like Japanese, agglutinative Korean affixes additionally add questions, adjectives, and negation.

Finnish

Like different agglutinative languages, Finnish expresses grammatical relationships by including affixes to a root phrase. It has 17 inflectional circumstances (versus 4 circumstances in English, or seven circumstances in Turkish), which is why Finnish could also be a bit tougher for learners to foretell a grammatical sample. 

Finnish affixes can point out possession, prepositions, verb tense, and extra. See how the Finnish phrase tuoli (chair) modifications while you add various affixes.

Hungarian

Hungarian, one other agglutinative language, additionally has many longer phrases composed of a root phrase and a number of other suffixes. You possibly can see what number of affixes change one of many longest recorded Hungarian phrases:

• Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért (on your continued habits of being inconceivable to desecrate) from the basis phrase szent (holy)

Hungarian grammar makes use of affixes so as to add specificity, verb tense, temper, and quantity. See how altering the preposition and plurality of “instructor” in English provides completely different affixes to Hungarian phrases.

Further agglutinative languages

Whereas Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Finnish, and Hungarian are the commonest agglutinating languages, they’re not the one ones on this class. Further agglutinative languages embrace:

• Basque
• Estonian
• Indonesian
• Inuit languages
• Tamil
• Malayalam
• Mapudungun
• Mongolian
• Nahuatl
• Quechua
• Swahili
• Tz’utujil

Languages like Persian (Farsi), Tagalog, and Navajo even have agglutinative components. Some elements of their vocabularies use affixes to alter the that means of a phrase, whereas different elements depend on phrase order and modifiers to make the that means clear.

Analytical and artificial languages

Agglutinated languages aren’t the one sort of morphological typology. Languages fall into two main morphological teams: analytic and artificial languages. These names seek advice from how a language makes use of morphemes to convey that means.

Analytic languages

Analytic languages have a low variety of morphemes per phrase, that means that they include many quick phrases (not like agglutinative languages, which have longer phrases with extra morphemes). They depend on phrase order in a sentence and auxiliary phrases to make clear that means, reasonably than affixes. 

Chinese language and Vietnamese fall right into a subset class of analytic languages known as isolating languages. They’ve restricted derivational morphology, so that they don’t use many affixes to alter the that means of a phrase.

Artificial languages

Artificial languages use inflection for that means by modifying phrases. These modifications might alter a phrase’s tense, voice, individual, quantity, gender, or specificity. Agglutinative languages fall into this class, together with fusional languages (which “fuse” phrase components collectively).

Greek and Latin are artificial languages, as are the vast majority of languages derived from them (together with Romance languages like Spanish and French). German and Arabic are additionally artificial, as are Russian and most Slavic languages. 

Is English an agglutinative language?

You’ll have seen that English is lacking on these lists, and there’s a purpose. To begin, fashionable English is a Germanic language, that means that it has many artificial components like German and different Germanic languages. It additionally contains influences from Latin and Greek, together with many widespread prefixes and suffixes. (That’s the place we get the famously lengthy phrase “antidisestablishmentarianism!”)

So does that imply English is fusional? Not precisely. English is just not agglutinative, and it’s not fully fusional (though Previous English was a extremely fusional language). Due to the significance of phrase order in English, smaller auxiliary phrases, and lack of inflectional endings, linguists place English extra within the analytic class with Chinese language and Vietnamese. 

However English isn’t fully analytic, both. Because of its many influences from Previous English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and pre-Roman Celtic languages, it has many irregular grammar guidelines that make studying English more difficult than some agglutinative languages.

Are agglutinative languages arduous to be taught?

Some agglutinative languages are tougher to be taught than others, and most aren’t as straightforward to be taught for English audio system. Turkish, Finnish, and Hungarian fall into Class III of the language issue rankings, that means that they might take round 44 weeks (or 1,100 hours of observe) to change into proficient. Japanese and Korean are in Class IV, which suggests learners observe these languages for 88 weeks or 2,200 hours to realize proficiency.

Some agglutinative languages aren’t as difficult for English learners. Class II agglutinative languages like Indonesian, Malay, and Swahili take round 36 weeks (900 hours) of observe. However with Rosetta Stone instruments just like the TruAccent speech recognition engine and Dynamic Immersion technique, you’ll discover that the educational course of is simple and pleasurable.