Editing Sprachbund

{{Short description|Languages similar by contact, not origin}}
{{Distinguish|text=the sociolinguistic term [[Sprechbund]], or with [[Sprachraum]], an area defined by a language}}
A '''sprachbund''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|p|r|ɑː|k|b|ʊ|n|d}}, from {{langx|de|Sprachbund}} {{IPA|de|ˈʃpʁaːxbʊnt||De-Sprachbund.ogg}}, {{lit}} 'language federation'), also known as a '''linguistic area''', '''area of linguistic convergence''', or '''diffusion area''', is a group of [[language]]s that share [[areal feature]]s resulting from geographical proximity and [[language contact]]. The languages may be [[genetic relatedness of languages|genetically unrelated]], or only distantly related, but the sprachbund characteristics might give a false appearance of relatedness.

A grouping of languages that share features can only be defined as a sprachbund if the features are shared for some reason other than the genetic history of the languages. Without knowledge of the history of a regional group of similar languages, it may be difficult to determine whether sharing indicates a language family or a sprachbund.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Mallinson|first1=Graham|title=Language Typology – Cross-linguistic Studies in Syntax|last2=Blake|first2=Barry J.|publisher=North-Holland|year=1981|isbn=0-444-863117|pages=17–18}}</ref>

==History==
In a 1904 paper, [[Jan Baudouin de Courtenay]] emphasised the need to distinguish between language similarities arising from a genetic relationship (''rodstvo'') and those arising from [[language convergence|convergence]] due to language contact (''srodstvo'').<ref>{{citation
| first = Jan Baudouin | last = de Courtenay
| chapter = Jazykoznanie | trans-chapter = Linguistics
| title = Enciklopedičeskij slovarʹ | volume = 31 | year = 1904
| editor1-first = F.A. | editor1-last = Brokhaus
| editor2-first = I.A. | editor2-last = Efron
| postscript = .}}</ref><ref name="Chirikba">{{citation
| contribution = The problem of the Caucasian Sprachbund
| first = Viacheslav A. | last = Chirikba
| title = From linguistic areas to areal linguistics
| editor-first = Pieter | editor-last = Muysken
| pages = 25–94
| location = Amsterdam–Philadelphia | publisher = John Benjamins | year = 2008
| isbn = 978-90-272-3100-0 | postscript = .}}</ref>

[[Nikolai Trubetzkoy]] introduced the Russian term {{lang|ru|языковой союз}} ({{tlit|ru|yazykovoy soyuz}} 'language union') in a 1923 article.<ref>{{citation
| first = Nikolai S. | last = Trubetzkoy
| title = Vavilonskaja bašnja i smešenie jazykov
| trans-title = The tower of Babel and the confusion of languages
| journal = Evrazijskij Vremennik | volume = 3 | year = 1923 | pages = 107–124
| postscript = .}}</ref>
In a paper presented to the first [[International Congress of Linguists]] in 1928, he used a German [[calque]] of this term, ''Sprachbund'', defining it as a group of languages with similarities in [[syntax]], morphological structure, cultural vocabulary and sound systems, but without systematic sound correspondences, shared basic morphology or shared basic vocabulary.<ref>{{citation
| first = Nikolai S. | last = Trubetzkoy
| contribution = Proposition 16. Über den Sprachbund
| title = Actes du premier congrès international des linguistes à la Haye, du 10–15 avril 1928
| location = Leiden | publisher = A. W. Sijthoff | year = 1930 | pages = 17–18
| postscript = .}}</ref><ref name="Chirikba"/>

Later workers, starting with Trubetzkoy's colleague [[Roman Jakobson]],<ref>{{citation
| first = Roman | surname = Jakobson
| title = Über die phonologischen Sprachbünde
| journal = Travaux du cercle linguistique de Prague | volume = 4 | year = 1931 | pages = 234–240
| postscript = ;}}
reprinted in ''R. Jakobson: Selected writings'', vol. 1: ''Phonological Studies''. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter, 1971, pp. 137–148.</ref><ref>{{citation
| first = Roman | surname = Jakobson
| chapter = Sur la théorie des affinités phonologiques entre les langues
| title = Actes du quatrième congrès international de linguistes tenu à Copenhague du 27 aout au 1er septembre, 1936
| location = New York | publisher = Kraus Reprints | year = 1938 | pages = 351–365
| postscript = .}}</ref>
have relaxed the requirement of similarities in all four of the areas stipulated by Trubetzkoy.<ref name="Tuite">{{citation
| doi = 10.1016/S0024-3841(98)00037-0
| title = The myth of the Caucasian Sprachbund: The case of ergativity
| first = Kevin | last = Tuite
| journal = Lingua | volume = 108 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–29
| year = 1999
| url = http://www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/tuitekj/publications/TuiteSprachbund.pdf
| postscript = .}}</ref><ref name="Thomason (2000)">{{citation | first = Sarah | last = Thomason | chapter = Linguistic areas and language history | chapter-url = http://www-personal.umich.edu/~thomason/papers/areas.pdf | editor1-first = Dicky | editor1-last = Gilbers | editor2-first = John | editor2-last = Nerbonne | editor3-first = Jos | editor3-last = Schaeken | title = Languages in Contact | location = Amsterdam | publisher = Rodopi | year = 2000 | isbn = 978-90-420-1322-3 | pages = 311–327 | postscript = . }}</ref><ref>{{citation
| contribution = Areal Linguistics: a Closer Scrutiny
| first = Lyle
| last = Campbell
| title = 5th NWCL International Conference: Linguistic Areas, Convergence, and Language Change
| year = 2002
| url = http://www.linguistics.utah.edu/Faculty/oldFacultyPages/campbell/CampbellArealLingEnc.doc
| postscript = .
| access-date = 2010-09-25
| archive-date = 2012-03-13
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120313032531/http://www.linguistics.utah.edu/Faculty/oldFacultyPages/campbell/CampbellArealLingEnc.doc
| url-status = dead
}}</ref>

A rigorous set of principles for what evidence is valid for establishing a linguistic area has been presented by Campbell, Kaufman, and Smith-Stark.<ref>Campbell, Lyle, Terrence Kaufman, and Thomas C. Smith-Stark. "Meso-America as a linguistic area." ''Language'' (1986): 530-570.</ref>

==Examples==

===The Balkans===
{{Main|Balkan Sprachbund}}
The idea of areal convergence is commonly attributed to [[Jernej Kopitar]]'s description in 1830 of [[Albanian language|Albanian]], [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] and [[Romanian language|Romanian]] as giving the impression of {{lang|la|"nur eine Sprachform ... mit dreierlei Sprachmaterie"}} ({{literal translation|only one language form with three kinds of language material}}),<ref>Jernej K. Kopitar, "Albanische, walachische und bulgarische Sprache", ''Wiener Jahrbücher der Literatur'' 46 (1830): 59–106.</ref> which has been rendered by [[Victor Friedman]] as "one grammar with {{sic|the}} three lexicons".<ref>{{cite book
| contribution = One Grammar, Three Lexicons: Ideological Overtones and Underpinnings in the Balkan Sprachbund
| first = Victor A. | last = Friedman
| title = Papers from the 33rd Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society
| publisher = Chicago Linguistic Society | year = 1997
| url = http://humstatic.uchicago.edu/slavic/archived/papers/Friedman-LgIdeologyCLS33.pdf}}</ref><ref name="Friedman (2000)">{{cite journal
| title = After 170 years of Balkan Linguistics: Whither the Millennium?
| first = Victor A. | last = Friedman
| journal = Mediterranean Language Review | volume = 12 | year = 2000 | pages = 1–15
| url = http://humstatic.uchicago.edu/slavic/archived/papers/Friedman-170yrsbalkanling.pdf}}</ref>

The [[Balkan Sprachbund]] comprises Albanian, Romanian, the [[South Slavic languages]] of the southern Balkans (Bulgarian, [[Macedonian language|Macedonian]] and to a lesser degree [[Serbo-Croatian language|Serbo-Croatian]]), [[Greek language|Greek]], Balkan [[Turkish language|Turkish]], and [[Romani language|Romani]].

All but one of these are [[Indo-European languages]] but from very divergent branches, and Turkish is a [[Turkic language]]. Yet they have exhibited several signs of grammatical convergence, such as avoidance of the [[infinitive]], [[future tense]] formation, and others.

The same features are not found in other languages that are otherwise closely related, such as the other Romance languages in relation to Romanian, and the other Slavic languages such as Polish in relation to Bulgaro-Macedonian.<ref name="Thomason (2000)"/><ref name="Friedman (2000)"/>

===Mainland Southeast Asia===
Languages of the [[Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area]] have such great surface similarity that early linguists tended to group them all into a single family, although the modern consensus places them into numerous unrelated families. The area stretches from Thailand to China and is home to speakers of languages of the [[Sino-Tibetan languages|Sino-Tibetan]], [[Hmong–Mien]] (or Miao–Yao), [[Tai–Kadai languages|Tai–Kadai]], [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian]] (represented by [[Chamic]]) and [[Mon–Khmer]] families.<ref name="Enfield">{{cite journal
| title = Areal Linguistics and Mainland Southeast Asia | first = N. J. | last = Enfield | journal = Annual Review of Anthropology | volume = 34 | issue = 1 | year = 2005
| pages = 181–206 | doi = 10.1146/annurev.anthro.34.081804.120406 | hdl = 11858/00-001M-0000-0013-167B-C | url = http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:57458:2/component/escidoc:57459/Enfield_2005_areal.pdf | hdl-access = free }}</ref>

Neighbouring languages across these families, though presumed unrelated, often have similar features, which are believed to have spread by diffusion.
A well-known example is the similar [[tone (linguistics)|tone]] systems in [[Sinitic languages]] (Sino-Tibetan), Hmong–Mien, [[Tai languages]] (Kadai) and [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] (Austroasiatic). Most of these languages passed through an earlier stage with three tones on most syllables (but no tonal distinctions on [[checked syllable]]s ending in a [[stop consonant]]), which was followed by a [[tone split]] where the distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants disappeared but in compensation the number of tones doubled. These parallels led to confusion over the classification of these languages, until [[André-Georges Haudricourt]] showed in 1954 that tone was not an invariant feature, by demonstrating that Vietnamese tones corresponded to certain final consonants in other languages of the Mon–Khmer family, and proposed that tone in the other languages had a similar origin.<ref name="Enfield"/>

Similarly, the unrelated [[Khmer language|Khmer]] (Mon–Khmer), [[Cham language|Cham]] (Austronesian) and [[Lao language|Lao]] (Kadai) languages have almost identical vowel systems.
Many languages in the region are of the [[isolating languages|isolating]] (or analytic) type, with mostly monosyllabic morphemes and little use of [[inflection]] or [[affix]]es, though a number of Mon–Khmer languages have [[derivational morphology]].
Shared syntactic features include [[classifier (linguistics)|classifier]]s, [[OV language|object–verb order]] and [[topic–comment]] structure, though in each case there are exceptions in branches of one or more families.<ref name="Enfield"/>

===Indian subcontinent===
In a classic 1956 paper titled "India as a Linguistic Area", [[Murray Emeneau]] laid the groundwork for the general acceptance of the concept of a sprachbund. In the paper, Emeneau observed that the subcontinent's [[Dravidian languages|Dravidian]] and [[Indo-Aryan languages]] shared a number of features that were not inherited from a common source, but were [[areal features]], the result of diffusion during sustained contact. These include [[retroflex consonant]]s, [[echo word]]s, [[subject–object–verb]] word order, [[discourse marker]]s, and the [[quotative]].<ref>{{cite journal
| last = Emeneau | first = Murray | year = 1956 | title = India as a Linguistic Area | journal = Language | volume = 32 | issue = 1 | pages = 3–16 | doi=10.2307/410649 | jstor = 410649}}</ref>

Emeneau specified the tools to establish that language and culture had fused for centuries on the Indian soil to produce an integrated mosaic of structural convergence of four distinct language families: [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]], [[Dravidian languages|Dravidian]], [[Munda languages|Munda]] and [[Tibeto-Burman]]. This concept provided scholarly substance for explaining the underlying Indian-ness of apparently divergent cultural and linguistic patterns. With his further contributions, this area has now become a major field of research in language contact and convergence.<ref name="Thomason (2000)"/><ref>{{cite book | last1=Emeneau | first1=Murray | last2=Dil | first2=Anwar | title=Language and Linguistic Area: Essays by Murray B. Emeneau | year=1980 | place=Palo Alto | publisher=Stanford University Press | isbn=978-0-8047-1047-3 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | title = Language contact | first = Sarah Grey | last = Thomason | publisher = Edinburgh University Press | year = 2001 | isbn = 978-0-7486-0719-8 | pages = 114–117}}</ref>

===Northeast Asia===
Some linguists, such as [[Matthias Castrén]], [[Gustaf John Ramstedt|G. J. Ramstedt]], [[Nicholas Poppe]] and [[Pentti Aalto]], supported the idea that the [[Mongolic languages|Mongolic]], [[Turkic languages|Turkic]], and [[Tungusic languages|Tungusic]] families of Asia (and some small parts of Europe) have a common ancestry, in a controversial group they call [[Altaic languages|Altaic]].{{citation needed|date=January 2024}} [[Koreanic language|Koreanic]] and [[Japonic languages|Japonic]] languages, which are also hypothetically related according to some scholars like [[William George Aston]], Shōsaburō Kanazawa, [[Samuel Martin (linguist)|Samuel Martin]] and [[Sergei Starostin]], are sometimes included as part of the purported Altaic family. This latter hypothesis was supported by people including [[Roy Andrew Miller]], John C. Street and [[Karl Heinrich Menges]]. [[Gerard Clauson]], [[Gerhard Doerfer]], [[Juha Janhunen]], [[Stefan Georg]] and others dispute or reject this.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}} A common alternative explanation for similarities among the "Altaic" languages, such as [[vowel harmony]] and [[agglutinative languages|agglutination]], is that they are due to areal diffusion.<ref>{{cite book 
| contribution = Turko-Mongolic Relations| first = Claus | last = Schönig
| title = The Mongolic Languages | editor-first = Juha | editor-last = Janhunen
| pages = 403–419 | location = London | publisher = Routledge | year = 2003
| isbn = 978-0-7007-1133-8 }}</ref>

The [[Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund]], in the northeastern part of the [[Tibetan plateau]] spanning the Chinese provinces of [[Qinghai]] and [[Gansu]], is an area of interaction between varieties of northwest [[Mandarin Chinese]], [[Amdo Tibetan]] and [[Mongolic languages|Mongolic]] and [[Turkic languages]].{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

===Europe===
{{Main|Standard Average European}}

''Standard Average European'' (''SAE'') is a concept introduced in 1939 by [[Benjamin Whorf]] to group the modern [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] [[languages of Europe]] which shared common features.<ref>"The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language", in [[Leslie Spier]], [[Alfred Irving Hallowell|A. Irving Hallowell]], Stanley S. Newman, eds. (1941), ''Language, Culture, and Personality: Essays in Memory of [[Edward Sapir]]'', [[Menasha, Wisconsin|Menasha]], [[Wisconsin]]: Sapir Memorial Publication Fund. pp. 75–93.<br />Reprinted in [[John Bissell Carroll|John B. Carroll]], eds. (1956), ''Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamins Lee Whorf.'' [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]], [[Massachusetts|Mass.]]: [[MIT Press|The M.I.T. Press]]. pp. 134–159.
{{blockquote|The work began to assume the character of a comparison between [[Hopi language|Hopi]] and western European languages. It also became evident that even the grammar of Hopi bore a relation to Hopi culture, and the grammar of European tongues to our own "Western" or "European" culture. And it appeared that the interrelation brought in those large subsummations of experience by language, such as our own terms "time", "space", "substance", and "matter". Since, with respect to the traits compared, there is little difference between [[English language|English]], [[French language|French]], [[German language|German]], or other [[Languages of Europe|European languages]] with the 'possible' (but doubtful) exception of [[Balto-Slavic languages|Balto-Slavic]] and [[Languages of Europe#Non-Indo-European languages|non-Indo-European]], I have lumped these languages into one group called SAE, or "Standard Average European."|Whorf 1941:77–78 and 1956:138.}}</ref> Whorf argued that these [[language]]s were characterized by a number of similarities including [[syntax]] and [[grammar]], [[vocabulary]] and its use as well as the relationship between contrasting words and their origins, idioms and word order which all made them stand out from many other language groups around the world which do not share these similarities; in essence creating a continental {{lang|de|sprachbund}}. His point was to argue that the disproportionate degree of knowledge of SAE languages biased [[linguist]]s towards considering grammatical forms to be highly natural or even universal, when in fact they were only peculiar to the SAE [[language group]].

Whorf likely considered [[Romance languages|Romance]] and [[West Germanic languages|West Germanic]] to form the core of the SAE, i.e. the [[literary language]]s of [[Europe]] which have seen substantial cultural influence from [[Latin]] during the [[Medieval Latin|medieval period]]. The [[North Germanic languages|North Germanic]] and [[Balto-Slavic languages]] tend to be more peripheral members.

[[Alexander Gode]], who was instrumental in the development of [[Interlingua]], characterized it as "Standard Average European".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lecorde.com/interlinguaus/pakupaku/uploads/GodeManifestodeInterlingua.pdf|title=Manifesto de Interlingua|first=Alexander |last=Gode |language=ia|access-date=February 10, 2013}}</ref> The Romance, [[Germanic languages|Germanic]], and [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] control languages of Interlingua are reflective of the language groups most often included in the SAE {{lang|de|Sprachbund}}.

The Standard Average European {{lang|de|Sprachbund}} is most likely the result of ongoing [[language contact]] in the time of the [[Migration Period]]<ref name="haspelmath1">[http://www.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de/seminar/abteilungen/sprachwissenschaft/ls_kortmann/Courses/Kortmann/Variation/index_html/2008-05-27.8724094854 "Language Typology and Language Universals"] accessed 2015-10-13</ref>{{full citation needed|date=December 2024}} and later, continuing during the [[Middle Ages]] and the [[Renaissance]].{{citation needed|date=May 2015}} Inheritance of the SAE features from [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] can be ruled out because Proto-Indo-European, as currently reconstructed, lacked most of the SAE features.<ref name="howyoung">Haspelmath, Martin, 1998. "How young is Standard Average European?" ''Language Sciences''.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=December 2024}}

===Others===
* [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] and [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] in the 3rd millennium BC<ref>{{cite book
| title = Syntactic Change in Akkadian: The Evolution of Sentential Complementation
| first = Guy | last = Deutscher | author-link = Guy Deutscher (linguist)
| publisher = [[Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press US]] | year = 2007
| isbn = 978-0-19-953222-3 | pages = 20–21}}</ref>
* in the [[Ethiopia]]n highlands, [[Ethiopian Language Area]]<ref name="Thomason (2000)"/><ref>{{cite journal
| first = Charles | last = Ferguson | author-link = Charles A. Ferguson
| title = The Ethiopian Language Area
| journal = The Journal of Ethiopian Studies | year = 1970 | volume = 8 | issue = 2 | pages = 67–80
}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
| first = Charles | last = Ferguson
| chapter = The Ethiopian Language Area | pages = 63–76
| chapter-url = http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED056566.pdf
| title = Language in Ethiopia
| editor-first1 = M. L. | editor-last1 = Bender | editor-link1 = Lionel Bender (linguist)
| editor-first2 = J. D. | editor-last2 = Bowen
| editor-first3 = R. L. | editor-last3 = Cooper
| editor-first4 = C. A. | editor-last4 = Ferguson
| publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 1976 | isbn = 978-0-19-436102-6
}}</ref>
* [[Shimaore]] and [[Kibushi]] on the Comorian island of [[Mayotte]].{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}
* in the [[Sepik River]] basin of [[New Guinea]]<ref name="Thomason (2000)"/>
* in the [[Baltics]] (northeast Europe) {{citation needed|date=November 2020}}
* [[Languages of the Caucasus|in the Caucasus]],<ref name="Chirikba"/> though this is disputed<ref name="Tuite"/>
*the [[Gilaki language|Gilaki]] and [[Mazanderani language|Mazandarani]] languages with [[Kartvelian languages|South Caucasian languages]]<ref>{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1016/j.cub.2006.02.021|title = Concomitant Replacement of Language and mtDNA in South Caspian Populations of Iran|year = 2006|last1 = Nasidze|first1 = Ivan|last2 = Quinque|first2 = Dominique|last3 = Rahmani|first3 = Manijeh|last4 = Alemohamad|first4 = Seyed Ali|last5 = Stoneking|first5 = Mark|journal = Current Biology|volume = 16|issue = 7|pages = 668–673|pmid = 16581511|s2cid = 7883334|doi-access = free| bibcode=2006CBio...16..668N }}</ref>
* several [[linguistic areas of the Americas]], including:
** [[Mesoamerican language area|Mesoamerican linguistic area]]<ref>{{cite journal
| doi= 10.2307/415477
| title= Meso-America as a Linguistic Area
| first1 = Lyle | last1 = Campbell | first2 = Terrence | last2 = Kaufman | first3 = Thomas C. | last3 = Smith-Stark
| journal = Language | volume = 62 | issue = 3 | year = 1986 | pages = 530–570
| jstor= 415477 }}</ref>
** [[Pueblo linguistic area]]{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}
** [[Pacific Northwest languages|Northwest Coast linguistic area]]<ref name="Thomason (2000)"/>
* [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian]] and [[non-Austronesian languages|Papuan languages]] spoken in eastern [[Indonesia]] and [[East Timor]]<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Klamer | first1 = Marian | first2 = Ger | last2 = Reesink | first3 = Miriam | last3 = van Staden | contribution = East Nusantara as a linguistic area | editor-first= Pieter | editor-last = Muysken | year = 2008 | title = From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics | publisher = John Benjamins | pages = 95–149 | isbn = 978-90-272-3100-0 }}</ref><ref>Schapper, Antoinette. [https://journals.openedition.org/archipel/371 "Wallacea, a linguistic area"]. ''Archipel. Études interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulindien'' 90 (2015): 99–151.</ref>
* East [[Anatolia]]—proposed, though currently uncertain<ref>{{cite book
|last=Haig|first=Geoffrey
|chapter=East Anatolia as a linguistic area? Conceptual and empirical issues
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IB3xBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA13
|pages=13–31
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IB3xBwAAQBAJ
|title=Bamberger Orientstudien|year=2014|editor1-first=Lale|editor1-last=Behzadi
|editor2-first=Patrick|editor2-last=Franke
|editor3-first=Geoffrey|editor3-last=Haig
|editor4-first=Christoph|editor4-last=Herzog
|editor5-first=Birgitt|editor5-last=Hoffmann
|editor6-first=Lorenz|editor6-last=Korn
|editor7-first=Susanne|editor7-last=Talabardon
|isbn=978-3-86309-286-3
|publisher=University of Bamberg Press
}}</ref>

==Proposed examples==

Language families that have been proposed to actually be sprachbunds

* [[Pama–Nyungan languages]] of Australia<ref>{{cite book | last = Dixon | first = R. M. W. | contribution = The Australian Linguistic Area | editor1-last= Dixon | editor1-first = R. M. W | editor2-first = Alexandra | editor2-last = Aikhenvald | year = 2001 | title = Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-0-19-829981-3 | pages = 64–104 m }}</ref>
* [[Afro-Asiatic languages]],{{sfn|Loprieno|1995|p=51}} proposed by G. W. Tsereteli to be a sprachbund rather than a language family. However, the linguistic consensus is that Afro-Asiatic is a valid language family.

==See also==
{{Wiktionary}}
*[[Isogloss]]
*[[Koiné language]]
*[[Geolinguistics]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Sprachbund| ]]