Genetic Relationship (linguistics)

Genetic Relationship (linguistics)

In linguistics, genetic relationship is the usual term for the relationship which exists between languages that are members of the same language family. The term genealogical relationship is sometimes used to avoid confusion with the unrelated use of the term in biological genetics. Languages that possess genetic ties with one another belong to the same linguistic grouping, known as a language family. These ties are established through use of the comparative method of linguistic analysis.

Two languages are considered to be genetically related if one is descended from the other or if both are descended from a common ancestor. For example, Italian is descended from Latin. Italian and Latin are therefore said to be genetically related. Spanish is also descended from Latin. Therefore, Spanish and Italian are genetically related.

Contact with another language (language contact) can result in influence (linguistic interference and specifically borrowing) by it. For example, English has been influenced by French, Persian has been influenced by Arabic, and Japanese has been influenced by Chinese. However, this influence by definition does not constitute a genetic relationship, or relates two very distantly related languages more, as with English and French, which are linked by Indo-European.

The discipline of historical linguistics rests on the theory that almost all of the languages spoken in the world today can be grouped by derivation from common ancestral languages into a relatively small number of families. For example, English is related to other Indo-European languages and more specifically to the Germanic family (West Germanic branch), while Mandarin Chinese is related to many other Sino-Tibetan languages.

Read more about Genetic Relationship (linguistics):  Mixed, Pidgin and Creole Languages

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