Language family

/lˈaŋɡwɪdʒ fˈamɪli/

/lˈæŋɡwɪdʒ fˈæmɪli/

[noun]

Language family

[NOUN]

a group of languages that are believed to have descended from a common ancestral language

Examples

1. And that represents something like 8 language families.

2. So we can speak the languages in our language family, everywhere on the planet.

3. There are two main problems linguists face when constructing these language family trees.

4. The current division of major language families represents the limit at which relationships can be established with reasonable certainty, meaning that languages of different families are presumed not to be related on any level.