Editing Isolating language (section)

{{Redirect|Uninflected|the use in grammar|Uninflected word}}
{{Distinguish|Language isolate}}
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{{Short description|Language with a very low morpheme per word ratio}}{{Linguistic typology topics}}
An '''isolating language''' is a [[linguistic typology|type of language]] with a [[morpheme]] per [[word]] ratio close to one, and with no [[inflectional]] [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] whatsoever. In the extreme case, each word contains a single morpheme. Examples of widely spoken isolating languages are [[Yoruba language|Yoruba]]<ref name="eajor">{{cite web |title=A Computerized Identification System for Verb Sorting and Arrangement in a Natural Language: Case Study of the Nigerian Yoruba Language |url=http://www.eajournals.org/wp-content/uploads/A-Computerized-Identification-System-for-Verb-Sorting-and-Arrangement-in-a-Natural-Language-Case-Study-of-the-Nigerian-Yoruba-Language.pdf |access-date=4 April 2023 |website=eajournals.org}}</ref> in West Africa and [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]]<ref name=brit/><ref name=silglos>{{cite web |title=Isolating Language |website=Glossary of Linguistic Terms |date=3 December 2015 |url=https://glossary.sil.org/term/isolating-language |access-date=4 April 2023}}</ref> (especially its [[colloquial]] [[Register (sociolinguistics)|register]]) in Southeast Asia.

A closely related concept is that of an [[analytic language]], which uses unbound morphemes or syntactical constructions to indicate grammatical relationships. Isolating and analytic languages tend to overlap in linguistic scholarship.<ref name=brit>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Analytic language |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |date=20 July 1998 |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/analytic-language}}</ref>

Isolating languages contrast with [[synthetic language]]s, also called [[inflection|inflectional languages]], where words often consist of multiple morphemes.<ref>{{cite book |last=Whaley |first=Lindsay J. |title=Introduction to Typology: The Unity and Diversity of Language |url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontoty0000whal |url-access=registration |year=1997 |publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc |chapter=Chapter 7: Morphemes |isbn=9780803959620}}</ref> Synthetic languages are subdivided into the classifications [[fusional]], [[agglutinative language|agglutinative]], and [[polysynthetic]], which are based on how the morphemes are combined.<ref>{{cite web |title=Lecture No. 13 |website=bucknell.edu |url=https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/linguistics/lectures/05lect13.html#:~:text=Languages%20that%20have%20no%20affixal,fewer%20affixes%20are%20called%20fusional |access-date=4 April 2023}}</ref>