Talk:Language family

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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)

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

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).

Template:Reply to 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)

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

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).

Template:Reply to Thank you to you both! How soon can the creation of this section be started? – Treetoes023 (talk) 18:02, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, you should have the honour to start, since this was your idea Template:=) 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).

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)

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)

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).

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

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)

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)

Proposal to add a map showing sign language families

Hi, I've noticed that there is no map of all sign language families on this page despite there being one in the commons. I a not very experienced with images so I post it hear for someone more experienced than me to put it in.Maybe someone wants to also make a new map and post it here Thekrost (talk) 03:13, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

There are at least three: File:Sign language families.png, File:Sign language families.svg, File:Main Sign Language Families.png. Of these I think the first is clearest, but reasonable people may disagree. —Tamfang (talk) 05:42, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Visually, the first one has nice colours, but the third one is more accurate, because it shows clearly the direct filiation (important in the history of SLs!) between American Sign Language and French Sign Language.

One issue I have (with all 3 maps in fact) is that they only mention the official, national Sign languages as taught in schools. It's already a good start, and the map is legit; but let's not forget that there are hundreds of SLs that are not represented in this map. In Australia alone, there are/were many SLs among indigenous Australians, which are not represented here; not to mention the many immigrant communities there; the colour for Australia represents AusLan (which indeed descends from BSL) but omits these other SLs. Ditto for Brazil, Indonesia and all large countries.

It is the same issue if a "map of (oral) languages of the world" only looked at official languages, and pretended that the only language in Brazil is Portuguese (ignoring the dozens of indigenous lgs), that the only languages of Africa are its colonial languages French, English and Arabic (when there are hundreds of indigenous lgs of Africa), and so on: such a map would be way too simplistic, and inaccurate.

I admit that I am biased, being a linguist who works on endangered languages myself, so I am sensitive to the issue of too Template:=).

In sum, ideally the map would be more detailed on the diversity of SLs. But I understand that's a difficult task, which might even be OR. So in the meantime, the maps here proposed are a good start. And I vote for the third one. -- Womtelo (talk) 09:24, 12 June 2025 (UTC).