This interactive language family tree shows all spoken languages in the world.

Under this hypothesis, all spoken languages evolved from a language spoken by humans thousands of years ago.

The closer languages are to each other, the more closely related they are.

This should be taken as a thought experiment. It is possible that language has originated multiple times. And if language originated only once, it might as well be impossible that this exact classification is correct due to the sheer number of language families.

Language families coloured blue are hypothetical or controversial.

For best results, use a computer.

This project makes use of the foundational work of many renowned linguists. Special recognition to Alexandra Aikhenvald, John Bengston, Leonard Bloomfield, Franz Boas, Claire Bowern, Lyle Campbell, Noam Chomsky, Harold C. Conklin, Aharon Dolgopolsky, Mark Donohue, Harold C. Fleming, Michael Fortescue, Alexandre Francois, Joseph H. Greenberg, Kenneth L. Hale, Vladislav Illich-Svitych, Terrence Kaufman, Sydney Lamb, Antoine Meillet, Marianne Mithun, Johanna Nichols, Kenneth Lee Pike, Malcolm Ross, Merrit Ruhlen, Edward Sapir, August Schleicher, Sergei Starostin, Morris Swadesh, Sarah Thomason, Alfredo Trombetti, Darrell T. Tyron, Clemens Voorhoeve, Stephen Wurm, and many others who have contributed to the field of linguistics.

Attribution

Language classification data adapted from Glottolog under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This version includes modifications to the original classifications. This work is not affiliated with Glottolog or its contributors.

Language data adapted from LinguaMeta: Unified metadata for thousands of languages under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This version includes modifications to the original data. This work is not affiliated with LinguaMeta or its contributors.

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