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With context, a language isolate may be understood to be ''relatively'' isolated. For instance, Albanian , Armenian , and Greek are commonly called 'Indo-European isolates'. While part of the Indo-European family, they do not belong to any established branch (like the Romance , Indo-Iranian , Slavic or Germanic branches), but instead form independent branches of their own. However, without such a disambiguating context, "isolate" is understood to be in the absolute sense. Some languages have become isolates in historical times, after all their known relatives went extinct. The when it was recognized that certain Japanese "dialects", such as Okinawan , were languages in their own right, and the Japonic Family was formulated. Language isolates may be seen as a special case of Unclassified Language s, being languages which remain unclassified even after extensive efforts. If eventually such efforts do prove fruitful, a language previously considered an isolate may no longer be considered one; this has happened with the Yanyuwa Language of northern Australia , which has recently been placed in the Pama-Nyungan family. Since linguists do not always agree on whether a genetic relationship has been demonstrated, it is often disputed whether a language constitutes a true isolate or not. GENETIC RELATIONSHIP The term "genetic relationship" is meant in the genealogical sense of Historical Linguistics , which groups most languages spoken in the world today into a relatively small number of Families , according to reconstructed descent from common ancestral languages. For example, English is related to other Indo-European Languages and Mandarin is related to many other Sino-Tibetan Languages . By this criterion, each language isolate constitutes a family of its own, which explains the exceptional interest that these languages have received from linguists. LOOKING FOR RELATIONSHIPS It is possible, though not certain, that all languages spoken in the world today are related by descent from a single ancestral tongue. The established language families would then be only the upper branches of the genealogical tree of all languages, or, equally, lower progeny of a parent tongue. For this reason, language isolates have been the object of numerous studies seeking to uncover their genealogy. For instance, Basque has been compared with every living and extinct language family known, from Sumerian to the South Caucasian , without conclusive results. There are some situations in which a language with no ancestor might arise. For example, if deaf parents were to raise a group of hearing children who have no contact with others until adulthood, they might develop a verbal Language Among Themselves and keep using it later, teaching it to their children, and so on. Eventually, it could develop into the full-fledged language of a population, as has evidently happened in the case of Nicaraguan Sign Language . Such a situation is not very likely to occur at any one time but, over the tens of thousands of years of human history plus pre-history, the likelihood of this occurring at least a few times increases. There are also Creole Language s and Constructed Language s such as Esperanto which do not descend directly from a single ancestor as portrayed for most languages. EXTINCT ISOLATES Caution is required when speaking of Extinct Language s as isolates. Sumerian is well known for a language so ancient; well enough to be able to recognize modern relatives, if they existed. However, many extinct languages are very poorly attested, and the fact that they cannot be linked to other languages may be a reflection of our poor knowledge of them. Etruscan , for example, is sometimes claimed to be Indo-European; although most historical linguists believe this is unlikely, it is not yet possible to demonstrate it one way or the other. Similar situations pertain to many extinct isolates of America, such as Beothuk and Cayuse . A language thought to be an isolate may turn out to be relatable to other languages once enough material is recovered, but material is unlikely to be recovered if a language was not written. Some of the languages for Undeciphered Writing Systems may be extinct isolates as people try but cannot find their relationship with existing languages. LIST OF LANGUAGE ISOLATES BY CONTINENT Below is a list of known language isolates, arranged by continent, along with notes on possible relations to other languages or language families. While this is likely to be a complete listing of spoken isolates, there are a large number of undocumented sign languages - seven in Tanzania alone, for example, and six in Thailand - which are also likely to be language isolates. : ''Note that the Status column reflects more or less the classification of "Language Types" in ISO 639-3 . "Vibrant" is classified "Living" or sometimes "Endangered" in ISO, depending on ongoing efforts to preserve the language, and "Moribund" is classified as "Endangered" in ISO, but may already be "Extinct".'' Africa Hadza has recently emerged from the Khoisan family to stand as a language isolate. Sandawe is another possibility. Data for other languages is not sufficient for classification. However, there are a number of sign languages in Africa which may prove to be isolates; these are not listed here. Asia Australasia and Oceania Europe North and Central America South America EXTERNAL LINKS
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