The focus of this chapter is the languages of Iran and South Asia. Two main language families are covered: Indo-European (esp. its Indo-Iranian branch) and Dravidian. Linguistic properties of these languages such as SOV word order are discussed. A special section is dedicated to non-Indo-European and non-Dravidian languages spoken in this region. The final section delves into the controversial issue of language universals and outlines the parametric theory of language typology. The so-called headedness parameter is used to illustrate how a number of co-occurring linguistic properties can be explained without recourse to common descent.

This chapter is dedicated to languages of the Americas, with the three main sections covering indigenous languages in North America, Meso-America, and South America. A brief outline of the major language families in the region is given, with the focus on the better-established language families. The last section discusses the issue surrounding Pirahã, a language controversially claimed to lack such basic grammatical mechanisms as recursion.

The focus of this chapter is on languages of eastern Asia. Languages from several languages families are discussed and their linguistic peculiarities are illustrated, including Sino-Tibetan languages, Austro-Asiatic languages, Tai-Kadai languages, as well as Japanese and Korean. The final section describes the phenomenon of isolating morphology in more detail and delves into the processes that change the morphological framework of a given language over time, from isolating to agglutinative, from agglutinative to fusional, and from fusional back into isolating.

This last chapter deals with three remaining issues, each with a dedicated section: macro families, sign languages, and constructed languages. Several major proposals that combine well-established language families into larger macro families are outlined, including the famous Nostratic hypothesis, as well as some lesser-known hypotheses such as the Dene-Yeniseian and Ural-Altaic hypotheses. The second section discusses sign languages and argues that they are like oral languages in that they have grammatical patterns of their own. The final section gives a brief overview of artificially constructed languages and how they differ from natural human languages, to which the majority of this book is dedicated.

This chapter describes languages of the South Sea Islands (in other words, Southeast Asia and Oceania). The main language family in the region is the Austronesian family. Its discovery and the controversy about its homeland are discussed. Moreover, the internal classification and linguistic peculiarities of this language family are outlined. The final section illuminates the puzzle of Malagasy, an Austronesian language spoken far away from its relatives, off the east coast of Africa on the island of Madagascar.

This chapter describes aboriginal languages of New Guinea and Australia, with the focus on both language classification into families and the linguistic peculiarities of the regions’ languages. Some special attention is given to Tok Pisin, a creole that serves as a national language in Papua New Guinea. The last section addresses the question of whether the languages of so-called “primitive peoples” are linguistically primitive. (Spoiler: the answer is no.)

This chapter covers languages of sub-Saharan Africa. Three language families receive special attention in this chapter: Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo and Khoisan languages. Linguistic peculiarities of languages in this region, such as unusual consonant sounds and noun classes, are described and illustrated. The final section deals with the issue of multilingualism on the social level and considers the concepts of official languages, trade languages, and creole languages, which are widespread in the region.

This chapter covers several issues in language classification: the distinction between a language, a dialect, and an accent; how and why languages are classified into families; how the ancestral language of a given family can be reconstructed; how languages diversify and how related languages come about. A separate section is dedicated to the documentation of languages “in the field.” The final section is concerned with the issue of language mapping; various resources offering language maps are discussed.

This chapter covers the languages of the Caucasus, with a heavy focus on languages that are spoken exclusively in this region, in particular, Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian and South Caucasian (Kartvelian) languages. Indo-European languages spoken in the Caucasus, such as Armenian, Ossetian, Tat and Talysh, are discussed as well. The final section is dedicated to the typological phenomenon of head-marking vs. dependent-marking.

This chapter covers the languages of the Greater Middle East, the region that includes the Near East, North Africa and the neighboring regions. The focus of this chapter is on Afroasiatic languages. The two branches of this family that are discussed in greatest detail here are Semitic and Berber languages. The last section delves into the issue of language contact, which is illustrated with the examples of two Afroasiatic (specifically, Semitic) languages that have been heavily influenced through language contact: Maltese and Moroccan Arabic.