A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to overlay many morphemes in a way that can be difficult to segment.
Examples of fusional Indo-European languages are Sanskrit (and the modern Indo-Aryan languages), Greek (classical and modern), Latin, Lithuanian, Russian, German, Polish, Croatian, Serbian, Slovak and Czech. Another notable group of fusional languages is the Semitic languages group. A high degree of fusion is also found in many Sami languages, such as Skolt Sami.
An illustration of fusionality is the Latin word bonus "good". The ending -us denotes masculine gender, nominative case, and singular number. Changing any one of these features requires replacing the suffix -us with a different one. In the form bonum, the ending -um denotes either masculine accusative singular, neuter accusative singular or neuter nominative singular.
Read more about Fusional Language: History, Declension
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)