Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives
Word structure · one world map for each value
WALS codes 165 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Exclusively concatenative”, covers 125 of them (76%); the least frequent, “Tonal/isolating”, is recorded for a single language.
That value is most frequent in North America (94% of the 33 languages coded there) and least frequent in Africa (38% of 26).
All 8 Indo-European languages coded have “Exclusively concatenative”.
Austronesian is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 4 of 10.
Exclusively concatenative125 languages · 76%
Exclusively isolating16 languages · 10%
Exclusively tonal3 languages · 2%
Tonal/isolating1 language · 1%
Tonal/concatenative2 languages · 1%
Ablaut/concatenative5 languages · 3%
Isolating/concatenative13 languages · 8%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exclusively concatenative | 10 | 37 | 17 | 12 | 31 | 18 |
| Exclusively isolating | 5 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Exclusively tonal | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tonal/isolating | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tonal/concatenative | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ablaut/concatenative | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Isolating/concatenative | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| All values | 26 | 45 | 25 | 13 | 33 | 23 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 10 | Isolating/concatenative | 40% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 9 | Exclusively concatenative | 67% |
| Indo-European | 8 | Exclusively concatenative | 100% |
| Niger-Congo | 8 | Exclusively concatenative | 62% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Exclusively concatenative: English, French, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Turkish
- Exclusively isolating: Indonesian, Hausa, Supyire, Vietnamese, Fijian, Wari'
- Exclusively tonal: Lango, Kisi
- Tonal/isolating: Yoruba
- Tonal/concatenative: Nandi, Maasai
- Ablaut/concatenative: Arabic (Egyptian), Hebrew (Modern), Berber (Middle Atlas), Beja, Lugbara
- Isolating/concatenative: Mandarin, Maori, Tukang Besi, Chamorro, Thai, Nama