Agglutinative language

An agglutinative language is a type of language where words are made up of different types of morphemes to determine their meaning. (A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that has a meaning.) What makes these languages different from others, is that if one removes the morphemes from the word, they will be able to stand on their own.

Examples

Chinook

• a–č–i–m–l–ud–a: (future–he–him–thee–to–give–future): "He will give it to you"

Hungarian

• szent: holy
• szentség: holiness
• szentségtelen: holinessless

Persian

Bozorgtarinhashunra niga mikardam - I was looking at their biggest ones.

• Bozorg: big
• Bozorg-tar: bigger (lit. more big)
• Bozorg-tar-in: biggest (lit. the more big one)
• Bozorg-tar-in-ha: biggest ones (plural)
• Bozorg-tar-in-ha-shun: their biggest ones
• Bozorg-tar-in-ha-shun-ra: at their biggest ones

Turkish

• ev–ler–den: (home–plural–from): "from the houses"

Kazakh

• бару: (baru) — to go
• бара алмау: (bara almau) — not being able to go
• бара алмаған: (bara almağan) — the one that couldn't go
• бара алмағандар: (bara almağamdar) — the ones that couldn't go

List

Below is a list of modern agglutinative languages:

• Algonquian languages, namely Cree and Blackfoot
• Athabaskan languages
• Austronesian languages
• Bantu languages (see Ganda)
• Berber languages
• Dravidian languages, most well-known of which are Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Tulu
• Eskimo–Aleut languages, namely Aleut, Inuktitut, and Yupik
• Esperanto
• Igboid languages
• Iranic languages, namely Persian, Ossetian
• Japanese language
• Kartvelian languages
• Korean language
• many Tibeto-Burman languages
• many Uralic languages, namely Hungarian, Finnish and Sami languages
• Mongolic languages
• Muskogean languages
• Northeast and Northwest Caucasian languages
• Quechua languages and Aymara
• Siouan languages, namely Lakota and Yuchi
• some Mesoamerican and native North American languages including Nahuatl, Huastec, and Salish
• Tungusic languages
• Turkic languages
• Vasconic languages namely Basque, and the extinct Aquitanian
• Somali language