An Isolating Language

There are many speakers of the English language. There are people who speak English as their native language. There are also people who speak it as a non-native language. All these people have one thing in common though. They speak the language. The English language is primarily an isolating language. Two other types of languages are inflectional and agglutinating. Languages have different qualities in these, but are usually one type. Between the three types of languages, English is isolating, even though it shows characteristics of the other two language types.

There are three different types of languages. These are isolating, inflecting, and agglutinating. In an Isolating language, the word to morpheme ratio is one to one. A morpheme is the smallest part of a word or unit. An isolating language would have more words that only have one morpheme in it. “An agglutinating language is one where a word typically consists of several morphemes that have clear boundaries” (Pereltsvaig 139). In an agglutinating language, the morphemes have a specific meaning for the word specifically. In an inflecting language, the morphemes are fused together and is harder to tell where the morphemes are separated and if they give one or more meanings to the word.

English is mainly an isolating language. In the passage of “The Pretty white dog was walking down the street one day when she noticed a gray mongrel with his owner. She stopped to sniff and greet the other dog. The mongrel’s fur was filty and he had a disagreeable smell. You are one of the ugliest dogs I have ever seen,” Fifi said unkindly. “And you are the rudest dog I have ever met,” replied Phydeaux.”, there is a total of 66 words. There is also a total of 21 words with more than one morpheme in it. Most of the words in this passage are just one morpheme, which makes English more of an isolating language. In the example “The Mongrel’s fur was filthy” was is used as a separate word to imply tense. The tense in this portion of text is talking about something in the past. This makes the English more like an isolating language. This shows that the separate words, the, fur, and was all have separate meanings. The ‘s in this example is another morpheme however. It gives ownership that implies that the fur belongs to the mongrel. In the word “disagreeable” dis and able are both separate morphemes. Dis means not, able means to have the power to do something, and agree is to confirm. These morphemes are a little harder to tell apart. In these ways, this shows that the English language has other qualities of those of agglutinating and inflecting languages.

Languages are complex. English is one of them. The English language is an isolating language, but it also shows characteristics of inflectional and agglutinating languages. In an isolating language, there is a one word to one morpheme ratio. Agglutinating languages have the morphemes glued together and they are easy to tell them apart. In an inflecting language, the morphemes are fused together and a little harder to tell apart. There are many languages in the world. These languages have characteristics of agglutinating, inflecting, and isolating languages.