language families. An accurately identified family is a phylogenetic unit; that is, all its members derive from a common ancestor. This ancestor is very seldom known directly, since most languages have a very short recorded history. However, it is possible to recover many of its features 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 listed below.
Language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family, because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. However, the term family is not restricted to any one level of this "tree"; the Germanic family, for example, is a branch of the Indo-European family. Some taxonomists do restrict the term family to a certain level, but there is little consensus in how to do this. Those who do affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, and groups into complexes. The terms superfamily, phylum, and stock are applied to proposed groupings of language families whose status as phylogenetic units is generally considered to be unsubstantiated by accepted historical linguistic methods.
The common ancestor of the languages belonging to a language family is known as its protolanguage. For example, the reconstructible protolanguage of the well-known Indo-European family is called Proto-Indo-European. This is not known from written records, since it was spoken before the invention of writing, but sometimes a protolanguage can be identified with a historically known language. Thus, provincial dialects of Latin ("Vulgar Latin") gave rise to the modern Romance languages, so the Proto-Romance language is more or less identical with Latin (if not exactly with the literary Latin of the Classical writers), and dialects of Old Norse are the protolanguage to Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Faroese and Icelandic.
Languages that cannot be reliably classified into any family are known as language isolates. A language isolated in its own branch within a family, such as Greek within Indo-European, is often also called an isolate, but such cases are usually clarified. For instance, Greek might be referred to as an Indo-European isolate.
Contents[hide]
1 Some major language families
2 Largest families
3 Language families (spoken)
3.1 Africa and southwest Asia
3.2 Europe, and north, west, and south Asia
3.3 East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific
3.4 Papuan languages
3.5 Australian Aboriginal languages
3.6 North America
3.7 Central America and South America
4 Language isolates (oral languages)
4.1 Central & South America
4.2 North America
4.3 Australia
4.4 New Guinea
4.5 Asia
4.6 Africa
4.7 Europe
5 Unclassified languages
5.1 Europe
5.2 Africa
5.3 Asia
5.4 Australia
5.5 South America
5.6 North America
6 Sign languages
7 Creole languages, pidgins, mixed languages, and trade languages
8 Proposed language stocks
9 See also
10 External links
11 Bibliography
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Some major language families

Examples of various families (see summary)
Afro-Asiatic
Altaic
Austro-Asiatic
Austronesian
Caucasian
Dravidian
Eskimo-Aleut
Indo-European
Khoisan
Na-Dené
Niger-Congo
Nilo-Saharan
Pama-Nyungan
Sino-Tibetan
Tai-Kadai
Uralic
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Largest families
According to the numbers in Ethnologue[1], the largest language families in terms of number of languages are:
Niger-Congo (1514 languages)
Austronesian (1268 languages)
Trans-New Guinea (564 languages) (validity disputed)
Indo-European (449 languages)
Sino-Tibetan (403 languages)
Afro-Asiatic (375 languages)
Nilo-Saharan (204 languages)
Pama-Nyungan (178 languages)
Oto-Manguean (174 languages) (number disputed; Lyle Campbell includes only 27)
Austro-Asiatic (169 languages)
Sepik-Ramu (100 languages) (validity disputed)
Tai-Kadai (76 languages)
Tupi (76 languages)
Dravidian (73 languages)
Mayan (69 languages)
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Language families (spoken)
In the following, each "bulleted" item is a known or suspected language family. The geographic headings over them are meant solely as a tool for grouping families into collections more comprehensible than an unstructured list of the dozen or two of independent families. Geographic relationship is convenient for that purpose, but these headings are not a suggestion of any "super-families" phylogenetically relating the families named.
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Africa and southwest Asia

Afro-Asiatic languages (formerly Hamito-Semitic)
Niger-Congo languages (sometimes Niger-Kordofanian)
Nilo-Saharan languages
Khoe languages (part of the Khoisan proposal)
Tuu languages (part of Khoisan)
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Europe, and north, west, and south Asia
Indo-European languages
Dravidian languages
Northwest Caucasian languages (often included in North Caucasian)
Northeast Caucasian languages (often included in North Caucasian)
Hurro-Urartian languages (extinct, perhaps related to Northeast Caucasian)
Kartvelian (South Caucasian)
Altaic languages
Uralic languages
Yukaghir languages (perhaps related to Uralic)
Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
Yeniseian languages (perhaps related to Burushaski)
Andamanese languages (perhaps two families)
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East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific
Austroasiatic languages
Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) languages
Hmong-Mien languages
Japonic languages (or Fuyu languages)
Sino-Tibetan languages
Tai-Kadai languages
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Papuan languages
Baining languages
Border languages
Central Solomons languages
East Bird's Head-Sentani languages
Eastern Trans-Fly languages (one in Australia)
East Geelvink Bay languages
Lakes Plain languages (upper Mamberamo River)
Left May-Kwomtari languages
Mairasi languages
Nimboran languages
North Bougainville languages
Piawi languages
Ramu-Lower Sepik languages
Senagi languages
Sepik languages
Skou languages
South Bougainville languages
South-Central Papuan languages
Tor-Kwerba languages
Torricelli languages
West Papuan languages
Yuat languages
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Australian Aboriginal languages
Bunaban languages
Daly languages
Limilngan languages
Djeragan languages
Nyulnyulan languages
Wororan languages
Mindi languages
Arnhem Land languages (3 families and 2 isolates)
Gunwinyguan languages
Pama-Nyungan languages
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North America