Cover not available

In:Investigating Language Isolates: Typological and diachronic perspectives
Edited by Iker Salaberri, Dorota Krajewska, Ekaitz Santazilia and Eneko Zuloaga
[Typological Studies in Language 135] 2025
► pp. 22–47

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Is there a typological profile of isolates?

ORCiD logo with link | DCLS & ISLE University of Zürich
ORCiD logo with link | DCLS & ISLE University of Zürich
ORCiD logo with link | DCLS & ISLE University of Zürich
ORCiD logo with link | DCLS & ISLE University of Zürich
ORCiD logo with link | Department of Linguistics University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
ORCiD logo with link | Laboratoire Dynamique Du Langage, CNRS & Université Lumière Lyon 2
Published online: 16 January 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.135.01vui
Abstract
Across the linguistic literature, one occasionally encounters claims of typological differences between isolates and non-isolates, but these are often vague, and tend to use isolates as proxies for small community size, hunter-gatherer societies, and/or socially/geographically isolated languages. We compared the distribution of 89 phonological and morphosyntactic typological features between isolates and non-isolates using a worldwide sample of 215 languages (68 isolates vs. 147 non-isolates), in which we were unable to find a statistically significant distinction. We discuss the relevance of our results for these claims, for the suggested proxy relationships between isolates and other factors, and suggest possible avenues for future research.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and methodology
    • 2.1Language sample
    • 2.2Features
    • 2.3Statistical methods
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Supplementary materials
  • Author contributions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (49)
References
Bakker, Dik. 2011. Language sampling. In The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology, Jae Jung Song (ed), 100–127. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar. 2013. Distributional biases in language families. In Language Typology and Historical Contingency, Balthasar Bickel, Leonore Grenoble, David Peterson, & Alan Timberlake (eds), 415–444. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar & Nichols, Johanna. 2020. Linguistic typology and hunter-gatherer languages. In The Language of Hunter-Gatherers, Tom Güldemann, Patrick McConvell, & Richard A. Rhodes (eds), 67–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar, Nichols, Johanna, Zakharko, Taras, Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena, Hildebrandt, Kristine, Rießler, Michael, Bierkandt, Lennart, Zúñiga, Fernando, & Lowe, John B. 2021. The AUTOTYP database [Data set]. Version v0.1.2. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boschloo, R. D. 1970. Raised conditional level of significance for the 2-2-table when testing the equality of two probabilities. Statistica Neerlandica 24(1): 1–9. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Perkins, Revere, & Pagliuca, William. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Calhoun, Peter. 2021. Exact: Unconditional exact test [R package]. Version 3.1. <[URL]>
Campbell, Lyle. 2017a. Introduction. In Language Isolates [Routledge Language Family Series], Lyle Campbell (ed), xi–xiv. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017b. Language isolates and their history. In Language Isolates [Routledge Language Family Series], Lyle Campbell (ed), 1–18. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cysouw, Michael. 2009. The Paradigmatic Structure of Person Marking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 2015. How WEIRD are WALS languages? Paper presented at MPI-EVA, Leipzig. [URL]
DeLancey, Scott. 2014. Creolization in the divergence of the Tibeto-Burman languages. In Trans-Himalayan Linguistics: Historical and Descriptive Linguistics of the Himalayan Area, Nathan W. Hill & Thomas Owen-Smith (eds), 41–70. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeVos, Connie & Pfau, Roland. 2015. Sign language typology: The contribution of rural sign languages. Annual Review of Linguistics 2015(1): 265–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds). 2013. The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. <[URL]>
Easterday, Shelece. 2019. Highly Complex Syllable Structure: A Typological and Diachronic Study. Berlin: Language Science Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ehret, Katherina, Blumenthal-Dramé, Alice, Bentz, Christian, & Berdicevskis, Aleksandrs. 2021. Meaning and measures: Interpreting and evaluating complexity metrics. Frontiers in Communication 6: 640510. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greenhill, Simon J., Hua, Xia, Welsh, Caela F., Schneemann, Hilde, & Bromham, Lindell. 2018. Population size and the rate of language evolution: A test across Indo-European, Austronesian, and Bantu Languages. Frontiers in Psychology 9: 576. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gruzdeva, Ekaterina. 2022. On diversification of Nivkh varieties. Northern Language Studies Special Volume: 25–33. <[URL]>
Gruzdeva, Ekaterina, Janhunen, Juha. 2025. The Amuric language family: why so exotic? In Investigating Language Isolates: Typological and Diachronic Perspectives, Iker Salaberri, Dorota Krajewska, Ekaitz Santazilia, & Eneko Zuloaga (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (This volume). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hammarström, Harald & Donohue, Mark. 2014. Some principles on the use of macro-areas in typological comparison. Language Dynamics and Change 4(1): 167–187. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hammarström, Harald, Forkel, Robert, Haspelmath, Martin, & Bank, Sebastian. 2021. Glottolog 4.5 [Dataset]. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jafari, Mohieddin & Ansari-Pour, Naser. 2019. Why, when and how to adjust your P values? Cell Journal (Yakhteh) 20(4): 604–607. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jäger, Gerhard & Wahle, Johannes. 2021. Phylogenetic typology. Frontiers in Psychology 12: 682132. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Majid, Asifa & Kruspe, Nicole. 2018. Hunter-gatherer olfaction is special. Current Biology 28(3): 409–413. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McWhorter, John H. 2001. The world’s simplest grammars are creole grammars. Linguistic Typology 10: 125–166. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018. The Creole Debate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mehrotra, Devan V., Chan, Ivan S. F., & Berger, Roger L. 2003. A cautionary note on exact unconditional inference for a difference between two independent binomial proportions. Biometrics 59(2): 441–450. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miestamo, Matti, Bakker, Dik, & Arppe, Antti. 2016. Sampling for variety. Linguistic Typology 20(2): 233–296. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miestamo, Matti, Sinnemäki, Kaius, & Karlsson, Fred (eds). 2008. Language Complexity: Typology, Contact, Change. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moran, Steven, McCloy, Daniel, & Wright, Richard. 2012. Revisiting population size vs. phoneme inventory size. Language 88(4): 877–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mufwene, Salikoko S., Coupé, Christophe, & Pellegrino, François. 2017. Complexity in language: A multifaceted phenomenon. In Complexity in Language: Developmental and Evolutionary Perspectives, Salikoko S. Mufwene, Christophe Coupé, & François Pellegrino (eds), 1–29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Muysken, Pieter, Hammarström, Harald, Krasnoukhova, Olga, Müller, Neele, Birchall, Joshua, van de Kerke, Simon, O’Connor, Loretta, Danielsen, Swintha, van Gijn, Rik, & Saad, George. 2016. South American Indigenous Language Structures (SAILS) Online [Data set]. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. <[URL]>
Nichols, Johanna. 1992. Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. The vertical archipelago: Adding the third dimension to linguistic geography. In Space in Language and Linguistics: Geographical, Interactional, and Cognitive Perspectives, Peter Auer, Martin Hilpert, Anja Stukenbrock, & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (eds), 38–60. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2019. R: A language and environment for statistical computing [Computer software]. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. <[URL]>
Rubin, Mark. 2021. When to adjust alpha during multiple testing: a consideration of disjunction, conjunction, and individual testing. Synthese 199(3–4): 10969–11000. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruxton, Graeme D. & Neuhäuser, Markus. 2010. Good practice in testing for an association in contingency tables. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 64(9): 1505–1513. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seifart, Frank & Hammarström, Harold. 2017. Language isolates in South America. In Language Isolates [Routledge Language Family Series], Lyle Campbell (ed), 260–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thurston, William R. 1989. How exoteric languages build a lexicon: Esoterogeny in West New Britain. In VICAL 1: Oceanic Languages: Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Ray Harlow & Robin Hooper (eds), 555–579. Auckland: Linguistic Society of New Zealand.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 1989. Contact and isolation in linguistic change. In Language Change: Contributions to the Study of its Causes, Leiv E. Breivik & Ernst H. Jahr (eds), 227–237. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Linguistic and social typology. In The Handbook of Language Variation and Change, J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill, & Natalie Schilling-Estes (eds), 707–728. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. Sociolinguistic typology: Social structure and linguistic complexity. In The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon (eds), 124–150. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Urban, Matthias. 2020. Mountain linguistics. Language and Linguistics Compass 14(9): e12393. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. The geography and development of language isolates. Royal Society Open Science 8(4): 202232. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Werner, Heinrich. 1997. Die ketische Sprache [Tunguso-Sibirica, 3]. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whitman, John. 2012. The relationship between Japanese and Korean. In The Languages of Japan and Korea, Nicolas Tranter (ed), 24–38. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wray, Alison & Grace, George. W. 2007. The consequences of talking to strangers: Evolutionary corollaries of socio-cultural influences on linguistic form. Lingua 117(3): 543–578. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue