none 10.1075/tsl.135.01vui John Benjamins Publishing Company John Benjamins Publishing Company 1757 170040710 5652813 1421459 202503120931000040 10.1075 2025-03-12T04:32:21Z 2025-01-09T04:41:31Z 0 0167-7373 10.1075/tsl https://benjamins.com/ catalog/tsl Iker Salaberri University of the Basque Country UPV https://ror.org/000xsnr85 EHU https://ror.org/000xsnr85 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3859-4011 Dorota Krajewska University of the Basque Country UPV https://ror.org/000xsnr85 EHU https://ror.org/000xsnr85 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6909-985X Ekaitz Santazilia Public University of Navarre (UPNA) https://ror.org/02z0cah89 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1158-821X Eneko Zuloaga University of the Basque Country UPV https://ror.org/000xsnr85 EHU https://ror.org/000xsnr85 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2579-6327 Typological and diachronic perspectives Language isolates provide unique insights into human history and linguistic diversity. Nevertheless, isolates have been studied less exhaustively than non-isolates. The eleven papers gathered in this volume provide new methodological tools in order to better understand isolates, including a detailed, in-depth, up-to-date discussion of what it means to be a language isolate and the criteria by which languages should be classified as isolate. The book also provides a series of techniques, some refined on the basis of former literature, and others new, in order to recover the histories of language isolates. In addition, the papers in this volume advance our knowledge about each of the individual languages studied here, which are, for the most part, endangered and under-documented. This book will appeal to a broad audience spanning typologists, historical linguists, descriptive linguists, and teachers of linguistics. 135 1 16 2025 1 8 2025 9789027218995 9789027246295 John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam 10.1075/tsl.135 http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027246295 https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1075/tsl.135/html https://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/9789027246295.pdf Marine Vuillermet University of Zürich https://ror.org/02crff812 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6443-8461 David Inman University of Zürich https://ror.org/02crff812 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8512-0380 Natalia Chousou-Polydouri University of Zürich https://ror.org/02crff812 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5693-975X Kellen Parker van Dam University of Zürich https://ror.org/02crff812 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7304-1685 Shelece Easterday University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa https://ror.org/01wspgy28 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1186-1044 Françoise Rose https://ror.org/03rth4p18 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4357-1383 Abstract Across the linguistic literature, one occasionally encounters claims of typological differences between isolates and non-isolates, but these are often vague, and tend to use isolates as proxies for small community size, hunter-gatherer societies, and/or socially/geographically isolated languages. We compared the distribution of 89 phonological and morphosyntactic typological features between isolates and non-isolates using a worldwide sample of 215 languages (68 isolates vs. 147 non-isolates), in which we were unable to find a statistically significant distinction. We discuss the relevance of our results for these claims, for the suggested proxy relationships between isolates and other factors, and suggest possible avenues for future research. 1 16 2025 1 8 2025 22 47 10.1075/tsl.135.01vui https://benjamins.com/catalog/tsl.135.01vui https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1075/tsl.135.01vui/html The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology Bakker 100 2011 Language sampling 10.1075/tsl.104.19bic 10.1017/9781139026208.004 10.5281/zenodo.4574513 10.1111/j.1467-9574.1970.tb00104.x The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World Bybee 1994 Exact: Unconditional exact test Calhoun 2021 10.4324/9781315750026 10.4324/9781315750026-1 The Paradigmatic Structure of Person Marking Cysouw 2009 How WEIRD are WALS languages? Dahl 2015 10.1515/9783110310832.41 10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-124958 The World Atlas of Language Structures Online Dryer 2013 10.5281/zenodo.3268721 10.3389/fcomm.2021.640510 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00576 Northern Language Studies Gruzdeva 25 2022 On diversification of Nivkh varieties 10.1075/tsl.135.02gru 10.1163/22105832-00401001 10.5281/zenodo.5772642 10.22074/CELLJ.2019.5992 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.682132 10.1016/j.cub.2017.12.014 10.1075/tsl.57 10.1515/lity.2001.001 10.1017/9781108553308 10.1111/1541-0420.00051 10.1515/lingty-2016-0006 10.1075/slcs.94 10.1353/lan.2012.0087 10.1017/9781107294264.001 South American Indigenous Language Structures (SAILS) Online Muysken 2016 10.7208/chicago/9780226580593.001.0001 10.1515/9783110312027.38 R: A language and environment for statistical computing R Core Team 2019 10.1007/s11229-021-03276-4 10.1007/s00265-010-1014-0 10.4324/9781315750026-10 VICAL 1: Oceanic Languages: Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics Thurston 555 1989 How exoteric languages build a lexicon: Esoterogeny in West New Britain 10.1515/9783110853063.227 10.1002/9780470756591.ch27 Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity Trudgill 2011 10.1017/9781316135716.005 10.1111/lnc3.12393 10.1098/rsos.202232 Die ketische Sprache Werner 1997 The Languages of Japan and Korea Whitman 24 2012 The relationship between Japanese and Korean 10.1016/j.lingua.2005.05.005