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Language family facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Human Language Families (wikicolors)
Language families of the world today.

Language families are groups of languages that are related to each other because they come from a common older language. The languages in such a family are similar in their vocabulary or structure.

For example, French and Spanish both come from Latin. Latin was spoken a long time ago, and some of the people who spoke it started to speak one way, saying, for example, for good: "bueno" while another group started saying "bon." Most words are said a little differently in Spanish and French, so the two are called different languages.

Most languages belong to a language family, but some languages do not. These languages are called Language isolates.

There also are constructed languages, like for example Esperanto. Constructed languages are made for different reasons: making a 'world language', for fun, for use in fiction, etc.

Language families

Some language families with sub-families and language examples:

Indo-European languages

Other

  • Tai-Kadai languages

Images for kids

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Familia de lenguas para niños

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Language family Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.