Most languages are known to belong to language families. An accurately identified family is a phylogenetic unit; that is, all its members derive from a common ancestor. The concept of language families is thus dependent on the concept of a historical genetic "ancestor" of a language, implying a gradual evolution over time of one language into another language (as opposed to sudden replacement of a language): the concept of linguistic "ancestry" it is less clear-cut than the concept of biological ancestry, and in cases of significant historical language contact, it may be unclear which languages should be counted among the ancestors of a given language.

This ancestor is very seldom known directly, since most languages have a very short recorded history. However, it is possible to recover many of its features by applying the comparative method—a reconstructive procedure worked out by 19th century linguist August Schleicher. This can demonstrate the validity of many of the proposed families listed below.

Language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family, because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. However, the term family is not restricted to any one level of this "tree"; the Germanic family, for example, is a branch of the Indo-European family. Some taxonomists do restrict the term family to a certain level, but there is little consensus in how to do this. Those who do affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, and groups into complexes. The terms superfamily, phylum, and stock are applied to proposed groupings of language families whose status as phylogenetic units is generally considered to be unsubstantiated by accepted historical linguistic methods.

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Christmas greetings in all known world languages http://tinyurl.com/ya6mvjp
donboscoforum (don bosco forum) Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:29:34 -0000
Christmas greetings in all known world languages http://tinyurl.com/ya6mvjp
RT @ReiadKhan: It is sad. Of the world's 6500 living languages, around half are expected to die out by the end of this century. (Unesco)
bonulo (Bonulo) Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:27:14 -0000
RT @ReiadKhan: It is sad. Of the world's 6500 living languages, around half are expected to die out by the end of this century. (Unesco)
It is sad. Of the world's 6500 living languages, around half are expected to die out by the end of this century. (Unesco)
ReiadKhan (Reiad Khan) Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:11:09 -0000
It is sad. Of the world's 6500 living languages, around half are expected to die out by the end of this century. (Unesco)
JapaneseRT @intanwijaya:over all languages in the world, i think the hardest is chinese, even i am almost fluent on it,but still the hardest
vanxiaoyi (vanda zhang :)) Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:47:04 -0000
JapaneseRT @intanwijaya:over all languages in the world, i think the hardest is chinese, even i am almost fluent on it,but still the hardest
Over all languages in the world, i think the hardest is chinese, even i am almost fluent on it, but still the hardest
intanwijaya (intan wijaya) Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:44:16 -0000
Over all languages in the world, i think the hardest is chinese, even i am almost fluent on it, but still the hardest
On my journey to India I've realized sumthin, I speak the most important 2 languages...Love and Music. They translate anywhere in the world.
cliffordhenson (Clifford Henson ) Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:38:56 -0000
On my journey to India I've realized sumthin, I speak the most important 2 languages...Love and Music. They translate anywhere in the world.

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