linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, language classification is the grouping of related languages into the same category. There are two main kinds of language classification: genealogical and typological classification.

Genealogical (or genetic) classification

Languages are grouped by

diachronic Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach - from ,("together") + ,("time") - considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. In contrast, a ''diac ...

relatedness into

language families A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ana ...

. In other words, languages are grouped based on how they were developed and evolved throughout history, with languages which descended from a common ancestor being grouped into the same language family.

Typological classification

Languages are grouped by their structural and functional features.

References

{{Reflist Language Linguistics stub

Genealogical (or genetic) classification

Typological classification

See also

References