An isolating language is a type of language with a low morpheme-per-word ratio — in the extreme case of an isolating language words are composed of a single morpheme. A closely related concept is the analytic language, which in the extreme case does not use any inflections to indicate grammatical relationships (but which may still form compound words or may change the meanings of individual words with derivational morphemes, either of which processes gives more than one morpheme per word).
Isolating languages are in contrast to synthetic languages, where words often consist of multiple morphemes. That linguistic classification is subdivided into the classifications fusional, agglutinative, and polysynthetic, which are based on how the morphemes are combined.
Read more about Isolating Language: Explanation, Analytic Languages
Famous quotes containing the words isolating and/or language:
“Self-alienation is the source of all degradation as well as, on the contrary, the basis of all true elevation. The first step will be a look inward, an isolating contemplation of our self. Whoever remains standing here proceeds only halfway. The second step must be an active look outward, an autonomous, determined observation of the outer world.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)
“And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
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Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)