have a turn for languages
11South American Indian languages — Introduction group of languages that once covered and today still partially cover all of South America, the Antilles, and Central America to the south of a line from the Gulf of Honduras to the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. Estimates of… …
12Austroasiatic languages — Superfamily of about 150 languages spoken by close to 90 million physically and culturally very diverse people in South and Southeast Asia. Today most scholars believe that it is subdivided into two families, Munda and Mon Khmer. The present… …
13North American Indian languages — Introduction those languages that are indigenous to the United States and subarctic Canada and that are spoken north of the Mexican border. A number of language groups within this area, however, extend as far south as Central America. The… …
14Mesoamerican Indian languages — Introduction also called Middle American Indian languages group of languages spoken in an area of the aboriginal New World that includes central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, parts of Honduras and Nicaragua, and… …
15Slavic languages — or Slavonic languages Branch of the Indo European language family spoken by more than 315 million people in central and eastern Europe and northern Asia. The Slavic family is usually divided into three subgroups: West Slavic, comprising Polish,… …
16Romance languages — romance1 (def. 8). [1770 80] * * * Group of related languages derived from Latin, with nearly 920 million native speakers. The major Romance languages French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian are national languages. French is probably… …
17Austronesian languages — formerly Malayo Polynesian languages Family of about 1,200 languages spoken by more than 200 million people in Indonesia, the Philippines, Madagascar, the central and southern Pacific island groups (except most of New Guinea; see Papuan… …
18Uralic languages — Family of more than 30 languages spoken by some 25 million people in central and northern Eurasia. A primary division is between the Finno Ugric languages, which account for most of the languages and speakers, and the Samoyedic languages. The… …
19Chinese languages — or Sinitic languages Family of languages comprising one of the two branches of Sino Tibetan. They are spoken by about 95% of the inhabitants of China and by many communities of Chinese immigrants elsewhere. Linguists regard the major dialect… …
20Tai languages — Family of closely related languages spoken in Southeast Asia and southern China by more than 80 million people. According to a widely used classification, Tai comprises three branches. The Southwestern group includes Thai, the national language… …
