Language Isolates

Language isolates are languages that have no known historical or linguistic relationship to any other languages. Language isolates can be found in all parts of the world. In some cases, languages are classified as isolates because we know so little about them that we are unable to establish a family relationship, as in the case of some languages of Papua New Guinea. In other cases, the languages are well known and well described, but a family relationship cannot be determined because all their relatives went extinct and have left no record. Such is probably the case of Basque. On the other hand, a language thought to be an isolate may turn out to be related to other languages once scholars agree on the classification scheme. This is the case of Japanese which was considered to be a language isolate until its relationship to Ryukyuan languages was established. As a result, Japanese is now considered to be a member of the Japanese (Japonic) language family. There is also the case of Korean which was considered by scholars to be a language isolate, but today is thought to be a member of the Altaic language family, and by others a language isolate. Finally, some languages have become isolates in recent times. This happened because all their known relatives have become extinct.

Status

Ethnologue lists 75 language isolates. Of these, 9 are extinct and 8 are on the verge of extinction with fewer than 100 speakers remaining. A good percentage of the languages listed are spoken in remote areas of Papua New Guinea, and the Andean regions of South America. The only large language isolates are Korean with 42 million and Basque with more than 580,000 speakers. The table below lists some of the existing language isolates.

Indonesia and Papua New Guinea
Abinom	300	Indonesia (Papua)
Ainu	15	Hokkaido Island, Japan, Kuril Islands	Historically a small closely related family of its own.
Burmeso	250	Indonesia (Papua)
Karkar-Yuri	1,142	Papua New Guinea
Kibiri	1,100	Papua New Guinea
Odiai	244	Papua New Guinea
Yale	600	Papua New Guinea
Asia
Burushaski	87,000	Pakistan
Gilyak (Nivkh)	1,089	Russia Far East, lower Amur River basin and on the Sakhalin Islands	A Palaeosiberian language possibly linked to Chukchi-Kamchatkan.
Nihali	2,000	Maharashtra state of India
South America
Andoque	619 (50 are monolingua)	Colombia	Possibly belongs to Witotoan language family.
Camsá	4,000	Colombia
Candoshi-Shapra	3,000	Peru	May be distantly related to Arawakan
Itonama	10	Bolivia
Leco	20	Bolivia
Movima	1,452	Bolivia
Páez	71,400 to 83,300	Colombia
Puelche	5-6	Argentina
Puinave	2,000	Colombia
Ticuna	25,000	Brazil
Tol	350	Honduras
Trumaí	78	Brazil
Tsimané	5,316	Bolivia
Urarina	3,000	Peru
Waorani	1,650	Ecuador
Warao	18,000	Venezuela
Yuracare	2,675	Bolivia
North America
Kutenai	6	Canada
Yuchi	10-12	U.S.
Zuni	9,651	U.S.
Africa
Centúúm	200	Nigeria
Europe
Basque	580,000	Spain