Editing Pro-drop language (section)

==Other language families and linguistic regions==
Among the Indo-European and [[Dravidian languages]] of India, pro-drop is the general rule though many Dravidian languages do not have overt verbal markers to indicate pronominal subjects. [[Mongolic languages]] are similar in this respect to Dravidian languages, and all [[Paleosiberian languages]] are rigidly pro-drop.

Outside of northern Europe, most [[Niger–Congo languages]], [[Khoisan languages]] of [[Southern Africa]] and [[Austronesian languages]] of the Western Pacific, pro-drop is the usual pattern in almost all [[linguistic area|linguistic regions]] of the world. In many non-pro-drop Niger–Congo or Austronesian languages, like [[Igbo language|Igbo]], [[Samoan language|Samoan]] and [[Fijian language|Fijian]], however, subject pronouns do not occur in the same position as a nominal subject and are obligatory even when the latter occurs. In more easterly Austronesian languages, like [[Rapa Nui language|Rapa Nui]] and [[Hawaiian language|Hawaiian]], subject pronouns are often omitted even though no other subject morphemes exist. [[Pama–Nyungan languages]] of Australia also typically omit subject pronouns even when there is no explicit expression of the subject.

Many Pama–Nyungan languages, however, have [[clitic]]s, which often attach to nonverbal hosts to express subjects. The other languages of Northwestern Australia are all pro-drop, for all classes of pronoun. Also, [[Papuan languages]] of [[New Guinea]] and [[Nilo-Saharan languages]] of [[East Africa]] are pro-drop.

Among the [[indigenous languages of the Americas]], pro-drop is almost universal, as would be expected from the generally [[polysynthetic language|polysynthetic]] and [[head-marking language|head-marking]] character of the languages. That generally allows eliding of all object pronouns as well as subject ones. Indeed, most reports on Native American languages show that even the emphatic use of pronouns is exceptionally rare. Only a few Native American languages, mostly [[language isolate]]s ([[Haida language|Haida]], [[Trumai language|Trumai]], [[Wappo language|Wappo]]) and the [[Oto-Manguean languages|Oto-Manguean]] family are known for normally using subject pronouns.

[[Yahgan language|Yahgan]], an extinct language isolate from Tierra del Fuego, had no pro-drop when it was still spoken widely in the late 19th century, when it was first described grammatically and had texts translated from English and other languages (three biblical New Testament texts: Luke, John, and Acts of the Apostles). In fact, emphatic pronouns and cross-reference pronouns on the verb commonly appeared together.

===Pragmatic inference===
[[Classical Chinese]] exhibits extensive dropping not only of pronouns but also of any terms (subjects, verbs, objects, etc.) that are pragmatically inferable, which gives a very compact character to the language. Note, however, that Classical Chinese was a written language, and such word dropping is not necessarily representative of the spoken language or even of the same linguistic phenomenon.