Talk:Language family

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Languages High‑importance

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Linguistics Top‑importance

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Section sizes

Section size for Language family (20 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	4,779	4,779
Major language families	3,689	3,689
Genetic relationship	2,709	8,497
Establishment	2,792	3,761
Linguistic interference and borrowing	969	969
Complications	1,003	1,003
Monogenesis	1,024	1,024
Structure of a family	2,019	6,582
Dialect continua	1,280	1,280
Isolates	2,168	2,168
Proto-languages	1,115	1,115
Visual representation	3,187	3,187
Other classifications of languages	90	4,270
Sprachbund	1,755	1,755
Contact languages	2,425	2,425
See also	621	621
Notes	34	34
References	28	28
Further reading	3,063	3,063
External links	642	642
Total	35,392	35,392

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://puntoluz.com/es/. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, provided it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. NotAGenious (talk) 13:02, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Section about the history of the concept of language families should be added

No article on Wikipedia has in-depth information on the history of the concept of language families, and I see no better place to put that information than here. I wouldn't be able to contribute to this section myself though, as I have no knowledge of the history of the concept of language families (mostly because there is no place I can find that has all the information in one place to read about). For this reason, I am making this discussion in hopes that someone who does have the knowledge will see this discussion and create the section. It would be greatly appreciated. – Treetoes023 (talk) 03:09, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is Diachrony and synchrony of interest to you? Remsense ‥ 论 03:20, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But the notions diachrony and synchrony are conceptually very, very remote from language family. Treetoes023 is correct, that "the history of the concept of language families" should be explained in the entry "Language family". That's a fair point. Womtelo (talk) 11:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC).[reply]

@Womtelo: Would you be able to help create this section or is it out of your area of knowledge as well? If not, do you know anybody who could help? – Treetoes023 (talk) 19:34, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would help if we agree that it should be placed on this article. Remsense ‥ 论 19:51, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

hi, I am an expert of various language families (and of language diachrony) rather than an expert of the history of that concept. But yes, I guess I could give a hand. -- Womtelo (talk) 20:04, 24 September 2024 (UTC).[reply]

@Remsense and Womtelo: Thank you to you both! How soon can the creation of this section be started? – Treetoes023 (talk) 18:02, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you should have the honour to start, since this was your idea

Do you have particular sources in mind? I imagine that the section should mention Sir William Jones; the Brothers Grimm; the Neogrammarians...

Useful sources include Campbell 2002, Matasović 2009 (Pdf ), Weiss 2014, François 2014, Rankin 2017.

Best. Womtelo (talk) 21:57, 25 September 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Lineal

Man, I wish that my fellow linguists would ditch the highly misleading (but entrenched) term "genetic" and replace it with something which conveys the correct connotation to the non-specialist. Such as the word "lineal." Traversetravis (talk) 17:50, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is WP:NOTAFORUM. In any case, I don't think it's better in science communication to replace a word people understand but where additional nuance might be required with one that sounds like a common word but whose precise meaning is simply unclear to the average person. Remsense ‥ 论 18:08, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I already addressed that concern, a few years ago, by noting in this 1st paragraph that several linguists propose to replace genetic with genealogical. (In that sense, no need to introduce the new term lineal). -- Womtelo (talk) 20:52, 22 October 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you - I appreciate that it's begun to be addressed. Traversetravis (talk) 02:53, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lineal has the disadvantage of suggesting that an extinct ancestor language has, at each time, at most one successor. —Tamfang (talk) 00:20, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Asterisk needed for Papuan

Hi, I'm new to Wikipedia, so I don't know how to edit images. But I noticed that "Papuan" doesn't have an asterisk in the image at the top of the article, even though it's a grouping of language families, many of which are (as far we know) unrelated. How about changing "Papuan" to "Papuan* (non-Trans-New-Guinean)"? Spoonberry (talk) 17:55, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]