Daughter language

Daughter language

In historical linguistics, a daughter language is a language descended from another language through a process of genetic descent.

Examples

  • Italian is a daughter language of (Vulgar) Latin, which is a daughter language of Proto-Indo-European.
  • Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch, which is a daughter language of Proto-Germanic, which is a daughter language of Proto-Indo-European.
  • Hindi is a daughter language of Sanskrit (Prakrit), which is a daughter language of Proto-Indo-European.
  • Modern Hebrew is a daughter language of Biblical Hebrew, which is a daughter language of Canaanite, which is a daughter language of Proto-Semitic.

See also