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Oceanic languages

(Encyclopedia)Oceanic languages, aboriginal languages spoken in the region known as Oceania. If Oceania is restricted to the Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian islands, the indigenous tongues spoken on these i...

Iranian languages

(Encyclopedia)Iranian languages, group of languages belonging to the Indo-Iranian family of the Indo-European family of languages. See Indo-Iranian languages. ...

African languages

(Encyclopedia)African languages, geographic rather than linguistic classification of languages spoken on the African continent. Historically the term refers to the languages of sub-Saharan Africa, which do not belo...

Dardic languages

(Encyclopedia)Dardic languages därˈdĭk [key], group of languages belonging to the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Indo-Iranian. ...

Dravidian languages

(Encyclopedia)Dravidian languages drəvĭdˈēən [key], family of about 23 languages that appears to be unrelated to any other known language family. The Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 200 million peo...

Semitic languages

(Encyclopedia)Semitic languages, subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages. See Afroasiatic languages. ...

Indic languages

(Encyclopedia)Indic languages, group of languages belonging to the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Indo-Iranian. ...

artificial languages

(Encyclopedia)artificial languages, languages that are invented by one or more human beings as opposed to languages that develop naturally among peoples. Examples of artificial languages are Volapük, Esperanto, an...

Germanic languages

(Encyclopedia)Germanic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by about 470 million people in many parts of the world, but chiefly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. All the modern ...

Caucasian languages

(Encyclopedia)Caucasian languages, family of languages spoken by about 7 million people in the Caucasus region of SE European Russia. The Caucasian languages take their name from the Caucasus Mountains, on the slop...