Editing Language family (section)

=== Proto-languages ===
{{main|Proto-language}}
A proto-language can be thought of as a mother language (not to be confused with a [[mother tongue]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Bloomfield |first=Leonard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gfrd-On5iFwC |title=Language |year=1994 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publ. |isbn=81-208-1196-8}}</ref>) being the root from which all languages in the family stem. The common ancestor of a language family is seldom known directly since most languages have a relatively short recorded history. However, it is possible to recover many features of a proto-language by applying the [[comparative method]], a reconstructive procedure worked out by 19th century linguist [[August Schleicher]]. This can demonstrate the validity of many of the proposed families in the [[list of language families]]. For example, the reconstructible common ancestor of the Indo-European language family is called ''[[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]]''. Proto-Indo-European is not attested by written records and so is conjectured to have been spoken before the invention of writing.