It has been suggested that Agglutination be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

An agglutinative language is a language in which the 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". Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into agglutinative language. ... Linguistic typology is the typology that classifies languages by their features. ... Morphological typology was developed by brothers Friedrich and August von Schlegel. ... An analytic language (or isolating language) is a language in which the vast majority of morphemes are free morphemes and 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-to-word ratio. ... A fusional 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. ... 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. ... A nominative-accusative language (or simply accusative language) is one that marks the direct object of transitive verbs distinguishing them from the subject of both transitive and intransitive verbs. ... An ergative-absolutive language (or simply ergative) is one that treats the subject 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 one where morphosyntactic markers vary according to compliance or non-compliance with normal rules governing the neutral order of verb arguments with respect to the position of each on the animacy hierarchy, similar to the way that Indo-European neuters were not originally regarded as... 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, agent-verb-object (AVO), commonly called subject-verb-object (SVO), is a sentence structure where the agent comes first, the verb second, and the object third. ... Verb Agent Object (VAO) or Verb Subject Object (VSO) is a term in linguistic typology. ... Verb Object Agent or Verb Object Subject - commonly used in its abbreviated form VOA or 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, Agent Object Verb (AOV) or Subject Object Verb (SOV) is the type of languages in which the agent, object, and verb of a sentence appear (usually) in that order. ... Object Agent Verb (OAV) or Object Subject Verb (OSV) is one of the permutations of expression used in Linguistic typology. ... Object Verb Agent (OVA) or 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. ... 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. ... In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest language 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... Charles Darwin 1836 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... It has been suggested that History of the Latin language be merged into this article or section. ...

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). Besides, 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-to-word ratio. ... An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a base morpheme such as a root or to a stem, to form a word. ...

Synthetic languages which 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, past tense, first person singular subject and perfect aspect). A fusional 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. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... 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. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ...

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-to-word ratio. ... A fusional 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 three irregular verbs (and not very irregular), Nahuatl only two. 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. Nahuatl (pronounced in two syllables, NA-watl ) is a term applied to some members of the Aztecan or Nahuan sub-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), Basque, the Dravidian languages, the Uralic languages, Inuktitut, Swahili, Zulu, Malay, the Northeast, Northwest and South Caucasian languages, and some Mesoamerican and native North American languages including Nahuatl, Huastec, and Salish. In the past, most of the Ancient Near East and what is now Iran also spoke such languages, like Sumerian, Elamite, Hurrian, Urartian, Hattic, Gutian, Lullubi, Punjabi and Kassite. Examples of agglutinative constructed language are Klingon and Tolkien's Black Speech of Mordor. Altaic is a proposed language family which includes 60 languages spoken by about 250 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and Far East. ... Basque (in Basque: 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 26 languages 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. ... Geographical distribution of Samoyedic, Finnic, Ugric and Yukaghir languages  Yukaghir  Samoyedic  Ugric  Finnic The Uralic languages 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. ... This article is about the 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. ... 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, 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). ... The South Caucasian or Kartvelian languages are spoken primarily in Georgia, with smaller groups of speakers in Turkey, Iran, and Russia. ... 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 BP Hopi Tubatulabal Sonoran... Nahuatl (pronounced in two syllables, NA-watl ) is a term applied to some members of the Aztecan or Nahuan sub-branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, indigenous to central Mexico. ... The Huastec, also rendered as Huaxtec and Huastecos, are an indigenous people of Mexico, historically based in the states of Hidalgo, Veracruz, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas concentrated along the route of the Panuco River and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. ... 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, the Fertile Crescent, Anatolia), during the time roughly spanning the Bronze Age from... The Sumerian language of ancient Sumer was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia from at least the 4th millennium BC. Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial and scientific language in Mesopotamia until about 1 AD. Then, it... Elamite is an extinct language, which was spoken in the ancient Elamite Empire. ... Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians, a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. // Language interrelations Hurrian is an agglutinative language which belongs to neither the Semitic nor the Indo-European language families. ... 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. ... An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose phonology, grammar and vocabulary are specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture the way natural languages do. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... The Black Speech is the fictional language of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. ...

Agglutinative languages are not entirely grouped by the family (although Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are definitely related, and it is often posited that Japanese and Korean are related). It is possible that convergent evolution had many separate languages develop this property, but 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. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Many Tibeto-Burman languages are also agglutinative. The Tibeto-Burman linguistic subfamily of the proposed Sino-Tibetan language family is spoken in various central and south Asian countries: Myanmar (the Burmese language as well as the languages of minorities like the Karens and Kachins), Tibet (Tibetan language), northern Thailand (Lahu, Lisu, Akha languages), southern China, Nepal, Bhutan...

See also

• Agglutination

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

References