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Some "Language Isolates" or "Unrelated Languages"
Languages listed on this page do not belong to any known language family. *

. Ainu
. Basque
. Burushaski
. Japanese
. Korean




 
Ainu
 
Basque (Euskara) (Euskera) (Eskuara)
back to Agglutinating languages

 
Burushaski
 
Japanese (Nihongo) (Nippongo)
 
Korean


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About the terms "Language Isolates" and "Unrelated Languages". What these terms indicate is that these languages are not related to each other nor to any other languages with which any linguistic comparison has been made. They are said to be "unrelated" or "isolated" from all other languages as well as from each other. In other words, languages listed on this page are listed here because the scholarly consensus is that they do not belong to any known language family.

There is some question about Japanese and Korean. It has been shown that Japanese and Korean share a lot of vocabulary and grammatical structure, and it also appears that Japanese may share a small, core vocabulary with certain South East Asian languages, but the nature of these commonalities has been disputed. Some linguists have concluded that Japanese (including the Okinawan dialects) and Korean are related to each other but not to any other languages. Some linguists have concluded that Japanese and Korean are in fact related to the Altaic languages. Others have concluded that Japanese has acquired a resemblance to Korean, and thus to the Altaic languages, through intense and prolonged historical and prehistorical contact. But still others have said that the evidence isn't clear enough yet, to draw any conclusion about either language, and so that they ought to be regarded as "unrelated". It seems best to list them as Isolates and wait for a greater consensus.