Question
Language isolates are languages that ____________.
The correct answer is
are not known to be related to any other languages
Defining Language Isolates
A language isolate is a natural language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other known natural language. This means it is not proven to be related to any other language, living or extinct, past or present.
Understanding the Options
- Option 1: States that language isolates are not known to be related to any other languages. This is the correct definition.
- Option 2: Suggests they are spoken in isolated geographical areas. While some isolates might be found in such areas, this is not the defining characteristic. Geographic isolation does not equal linguistic isolation.
- Option 3: Claims they lack dialectal or sociolectal varieties. This is incorrect; most languages, including isolates, exhibit internal variation.
- Option 4: Describes languages geographically separated within their family. This refers to geographic distribution within a language family, not to languages lacking any known relatives.
Conclusion
Based on the definition in linguistics, a language isolate is unique because its origins and relationships to other languages cannot be traced. Therefore, the defining characteristic is the lack of known relationship to any other language family.
The correct option is: are not known to be related to any other languages.
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Important Questions from Words
Given the Hindi and English words below, which one of the options is the reason for their similarity?
Hindi /$\underline d$o:/ 'two' /pǝ$\underline t^h$/ 'path' English /tu:/ 'two' /pa: $\theta$ / 'path' - Which of the following is/are type/s of affix/es?
- Which of the following writing system/s follow/s right to left writing direction?
- Choose the option that correctly matches the type of writing systems (P – S) in column X with the names of writing systems (i – iv) in column Y.
X Y P. Alphabetic i. Hiragana Q. Abugida ii. Roman R. Logographic iii. Devanagari S. Moraic iv. Chinese - The ninth and the tenth of this month are Monday and Tuesday __________
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