Language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with another language
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10 identifiers linking language isolate across the web's reference databases
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A language isolate, sometimes called an isolated language, is a language that has no demonstrable genealogical relationship with any other language. That is, an isolate is a language family that only contains one member. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe and Hadza in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê and Trumai in South America, Tiwi and possibly Porome in Oceania are examples of language isolates, as too are well attested extinct languages such as Sumerian and Elamite. The exact number of language isolates is unknown due to insufficient data on several languages; that is, there is a fuzzy boundary between language isolates and unclassified languages. Researchers may have differing criteria on how much comparative work needs to be done before concluding that a language is an isolate.