Linguistic area

A geographic region where languages from different lineages share structural features through prolonged contact. Shared traits can spread across language boundaries without common ancestry.

Language contact: Interaction between speakers of different languages that can influence the languages they use. It supplies the social conditions from which linguistic areas develop.
Balkan sprachbund: A linguistic area in southeastern Europe whose languages share features despite belonging to different branches. It is the best-known European example of contact-driven convergence.
Comparative method: A method for reconstructing language history by comparing systematic correspondences among related languages. It helps distinguish inherited similarities from traits acquired through contact.
Language genealogy: The historical study of relationships among languages descended from a common ancestor. Genealogy explains similarities by inheritance, unlike convergence through contact.
Contact-induced language change: A change in a language caused by interaction with speakers of another language. It describes how traits can pass between languages in the region.
Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area: A region where languages from several families share phonological, lexical, and grammatical traits through contact. Its shared features span language families and include phonology as well as grammar.
Language family: A group of languages descended from a common ancestral language. A linguistic area crosses family boundaries rather than describing shared descent.
Universal grammar: A proposed innate system of principles constraining the grammars of human languages. Universals can produce similarities across regions without local contact.
Calquing: The creation of an expression by translating the parts of a model from another language. Shared translated patterns can reveal contact even when words are not borrowed.
Ethiopian linguistic area: A contact region in Ethiopia where languages from distinct families share phonological and grammatical features. It demonstrates convergence among Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic languages.

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