An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view. It was derived from the Latin verb agglutinare, which means "to glue together." Linguistic typology is the typology that classifies languages by their features. ... Morphological typology was developed by brothers Friedrich and August von Schlegel. ... An isolating language is a language in which the vast majority of morphemes are free morphemes and are considered to be full-fledged words. By contrast, in a synthetic language, a word is composed of agglutinated or fused morphemes that denote its syntactic meanings. ... A synthetic language, in linguistic typology, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio. ... A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to squish together many morphemes in a way which can be difficult to segment. ... Polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i. ... Oligosynthetic (from the Greek ολίγοι, meaning few) is a hypothetical designation for a language using an extremely small array of morphemes, perhaps numbering only in the hundreds, which combine synthetically to form statements. ... Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... An ergative-absolutive language (or simply ergative) is one that treats the agent of transitive verbs distinctly from the subject of intransitive verbs and the object of transitive verbs. ... An active language is one where the only argument of an intransitive verb (that is, the subject) is marked sometimes in the same way as the subject of a transitive verb, and some other times in the same way as the direct object of a transitive verb. ... A tripartite language is one that marks the agent, experiencer, and patient verb arguments each in different ways. ... A direct-inverse language is a language where clauses with transitive verbs can be expressed either using a direct or an inverse construction. ... The syntactic pivot is the verb argument around which sentences revolve, in a given language. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Thematic role. ... Word order, in linguistic typology, refers to the order in which words appear in sentences across different languages. ... In linguistics, a VO language is a language in which the verb typically comes before the object. ... In linguistic typology, subject-verb-object (SVO) is the sequence subject verb object in neutral expressions: Sam ate oranges. ... Verb Subject Object—commonly used in its abbreviated form VSO—is a term in linguistic typology. ... Verb Object Subject - commonly used in its abbreviated form VOS - is a term in Linguistic typology. ... In linguistics, an OV language is a language in which the object comes before the verb. ... In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV) is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear (usually) in that order. ... Object Subject Verb (OSV) is one of the permutations of expression used in Linguistic typology. ... Object Verb Subject (OVS) is one of the permutations of expression used in linguistic typology. ... Time Manner Place is a term used in linguistic typology to state the general order of adpositional phrases in a languages sentences: yesterday by car to the store. It is common among SOV languages. ... Place Manner Time is a term used in linguistic typology to state the general order of adpositional phrases in a languages sentences: to the store by car yesterday. It would seem that it is common among SVO languages. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into agglutinative language. ... A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetical value. ... In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest lingual unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ... Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt (June 22, 1767 - April 8, 1835), government functionary, foreign diplomat, philosopher, founder of Humboldt Universität in Berlin, friend of Goethe and especially of Schiller, is especially remembered as a German linguist who introduced a knowledge of the Basque... Year 1836 (MDCCCXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... For other uses, see Morphology. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...

An agglutinative language is a form of synthetic language where each affix typically represents one unit of meaning (such as "diminutive," "past tense," "plural," etc.), and bound morphemes are expressed by affixes (and not by internal changes of the root of the word, or changes in stress or tone). Additionally, and most importantly, in an agglutinative language affixes do not become fused with others, and do not change form conditioned by others. A synthetic language, in linguistic typology, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio. ... Look up affix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Synthetic languages that are not agglutinative are called fusional languages; they sometimes combine affixes by "squeezing" them together, often changing them drastically in the process, and joining several meanings in one affix (for example, in the Spanish word comí (I ate), the suffix -í carries the meanings of indicative mood, active voice, past tense, first person singular subject and perfect aspect). A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to squish together many morphemes in a way which can be difficult to segment. ... It has been suggested that prohibitive mood be merged into this article or section. ... In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc. ... Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs. ... The subject of a sentence is one of the two main parts of a sentence, the other being the predicate. ... In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state. ...

Agglutinative is sometimes used as a synonym for synthetic, although it technically is not. When used in this way, the word embraces fusional languages and inflected languages in general. The distinction between an agglutinative and a fusional language is often not sharp. Rather, one should think of these as two ends of a continuum, with various languages falling more toward one end or the other. In fact, a synthetic language may present agglutinative features in its open lexicon but not in its case system: for example, German, Dutch. A synthetic language, in linguistic typology, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio. ... A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to squish together many morphemes in a way which can be difficult to segment. ... This article is about inflection in linguistics. ...

Agglutinative languages tend to have a high rate of affixes/morphemes per word, and to be very regular. For example, Japanese has only two irregular verbs (and not very irregular), Nahuatl only two and Turkish has only one. Georgian is an exception; not only is it highly agglutinative (there can be simultaneously up to 8 morphemes per word), but there are also significant number of irregular verbs, varying in degrees of irregularity. In contrast to regular verbs, irregular verbs are those verbs that fall outside the standard patterns of conjugation in the languages in which they occur. ... Nahuatl ( [1] is a term applied to a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan [2] branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. ...

Examples of agglutinative languages

Examples of agglutinative languages are the Altaic languages (see Turkish), many Tibeto-Burman languages, Basque, the Dravidian languages, many Uralic languages (the largest are Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian), Inuktitut, Swahili, Zulu, Luganda, Malay, the Northeast, Northwest and South Caucasian languages, and some Mesoamerican and native North American languages including Nahuatl, Huastec, and Salish. In the past, much of the ancient Near East also spoke such languages, such as Sumerian, Elamite, Hurrian, Urartian, Hattic, Gutian, Lullubi, Punjabi, and Kassite. Altaic is a proposed language family which includes 66 languages [1] spoken by about 348 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and northeast Asia. ... The Tibeto-Burman family of languages (often considered a sub-group of the Sino-Tibetan language family) is spoken in various central and south Asian countries, including Myanmar (Burma), northern Thailand, and parts of Western China (Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai (Amdo), Gansu, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hunan), Nepal, Bhutan, India (Himachal... Basque (native name: Euskara) is the language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of South-Western France. ... The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages[1] that are mainly spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka, as well as certain areas in Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and eastern and central India, as well as in parts of Afghanistan and Iran, and by overseas Dravidians in other countries... Geographical distribution of Samoyedic, Finnic, Ugric and Yukaghir languages  Yukaghir  Samoyedic  Ugric  Finnic The Uralic languages (pronounced: ) form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see below for derivation) is a Bantu language. ... Zulu (isiZulu in Zulu), is a language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority (over 95%) of whom live in South Africa. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Malay language, also known locally as Bahasa Melayu, is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who reside in the Malay Peninsula, southern Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau islands, and parts of the coast of Borneo. ... The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Caspian, Nakh-Dagestanian, or Dagestanian, are a family of languages spoken mostly in the Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia regions of Russia, in Northern Azerbaijan, and in Georgia. ... The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Pontic or Abkhaz-Adyg/Circassian, are a group of languages spoken in Caucasian Russia, Turkey, Jordan, Kabardino-Balkaria (an autonomous republic in Russia) and Abkhazia ( de facto independent formally an autonomous republic in Georgia). ... It has been suggested that Kartvel be merged into this article or section. ... Genealogy Areal Uto-Aztecan —5000 BP* Soshonean (N Uto-Aztecan) —3500 BP Numic (Plateau group) —2000 BP C Plateau Soshoni [SHH] Comanche [COM] Paramint [PAR] S Plateau Ute-Chemehuevi (S Paiute) [UTE] Kawaiisu [KAW] W Plateau Mono [MON] Paiute (Northern Paiute) [PAO] Takic ( Southern Californian) —2400... Nahuatl ( [1] is a term applied to a group of related languages and dialects of the Aztecan [2] branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. ... The Wastek or Huastec language is a Mexican maya language spoken by the Huastecs living in rural areas of San Luis Potosí and northern Vera Cruz. ... The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a group of languages of western Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. ... Overview map of the Ancient Near East The term Ancient Near East or Ancient Orient encompasses the early civilizations predating Classical Antiquity in the region roughly corresponding to that described by the modern term Middle East (Egypt, Iraq, Turkey), during the time roughly spanning the Bronze Age from the rise... The Sumerian language ( EME.GIR15 native tongue) of ancient Sumer was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia from at least the 4th millennium BCE. Sumerian was gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language in the beginning of the 2nd millenium BCE, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary... Elamite is an extinct language, which was spoken by the ancient Elamites (also known as Ilamids). ... Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians (Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in... Urartian is the conventional name for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu in Northeast Anatolia (present-day Turkey), in the region of Lake Van. ... Hattic was a non-Indo-European language spoken in Asia Minor between the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC, before the appearance of the Hittites. ... The Gutian kings came to some power in Mesopotamia in ca. ... An ancient group of tribes that inhabited the Zagros Mountains of Western Iran, or the language thereof. ... Punjabi (also Panjabi; in GurmukhÄ«, PanjābÄ« in ShāhmukhÄ«) is the language of the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. ... The Kassites were a Near Eastern mountain tribe of obscure origins, who spoke a non-Indo-European, non-Semitic language. ...

Agglutination is a typological feature and does not imply a linguistic relation, but there are some families of agglutinative languages. For example, the Proto-Uralic language, the ancestor of Uralic languages, was agglutinative, and most descended languages inherit this feature. But since agglutination can arise in languages that previously had a non-agglutinative typology and it can be lost it languages that previously were agglutinative, agglutination as a typological trait cannot be used as a evidence of genetic relationship to other agglutinative languages. Proto-Uralic is the ancestor language of the Uralic languages, including the hypothetical families of the Samoyedic languages and the Finno-Ugric languages. ... Geographical distribution of Samoyedic, Finnic, Ugric and Yukaghir languages  Yukaghir  Samoyedic  Ugric  Finnic The Uralic languages (pronounced: ) form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. ...

Many separate languages developed this property through convergent evolution. There seems to exist a preferred evolutionary direction from agglutinative synthetic languages to fusional synthetic languages, and then to non-synthetic languages, which in their turn evolve again into agglutinative synthetic languages. In evolutionary biology, convergent evolution is the process whereby organisms not closely related, independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments or ecological niches. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... An isolating language is a language in which the vast majority of morphemes are free morphemes and are considered to be full-fledged words. By contrast, in a synthetic language, a word is composed of agglutinated or fused morphemes that denote its syntactic meanings. ...

Some fictional and constructed languages, such as Esperanto, Klingon and D'ni, are presented as agglutinative. A constructed or artificial language — known colloquially as a conlang — is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been devised by an individual or small group, instead of having naturally evolved as part of a culture. ... Look up Esperanto in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Klingon language (tlhIngan Hol in Klingon) is the constructed language spoken by Klingons in the fictional Star Trek universe. ... Myst franchise Games and their Ages Novels Book of Atrus Book of Tiana Book of Dni Book of Marrim Comic Books #0   #1 Miscellaneous Dni   Dni Ages   The Art   Timeline   Items   Kings   Language   Numerals   People   Wildlife   Organizations Brøderbund   Cyan   Presto   Ubisoft   DRC Note: Fictional details...

See also

• Agglutination

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into agglutinative language. ...

References