1296: Oligosynthetic Languages pt. 2 (In Nature) Jun 28, 2018

It was discussed yesterday how the highly, even unrealistically minimalistic variety of languages known as 'oligosynthetic' could probably not exist in natural languages, but there was a time when some thought otherwise. Languages including Nahuatl, spoken by the Aztecs and their descendants, as well as Blackfoot, also known as Siksiká, have at one time or another been claimed to be oligosynthetic in some way or another. These ideas are now discredited, and these languages, like most in the Americas, are considered to be polysynthetic. Polysynthetic language may appear from first glance to be opposite to oligosynthetic languages, given that they have extremely complex morphosyntactic systems, but actually both rely on a level of compounding which would put German or Turkish to shame.

Examples of what could be considered oligosynthetic languages will be the topic for tomorrow.