An Isolating Language

There are many speakers of the English language. There are people who speak English as their
native language. There are also people who speak it as a non-native language. All these people have
one thing in common though. They speak the language. The English language is primarily an isolating
language. Two other types of languages are inflectional and agglutinating. Languages have different
qualities in these, but are usually one type. Between the three types of languages, English is isolating,
even though it shows characteristics of the other two language types.
There are three different types of languages. These are isolating, inflecting, and agglutinating.
In an Isolating language, the word to morpheme ratio is one to one. A morpheme is the smallest
part of a word or unit. An isolating language would have more words that only have one
morpheme in it. An agglutinating language is one where a word typically consists of several
morphemes that have clear boundaries (Pereltsvaig 139). In an agglutinating language, the
morphemes have a specific meaning for the word specifically. In an inflecting language, the
morphemes are fused together and is harder to tell where the morphemes are separated and if
they give one or more meanings to the word.
English is mainly an isolating language. In the passage of The Pretty white dog was walking
down the street one day when she noticed a gray mongrel with his owner. She stopped to sniff and
greet the other dog. The mongrels fur was filty and he had a disagreeable smell. You are one of the
ugliest dogs I have ever seen, Fifi said unkindly. And you are the rudest dog I have ever met, replied
Phydeaux., there is a total of 66 words. There is also a total of 21 words with more than one
morpheme in it. Most of the words in this passage are just one morpheme, which makes English more
of an isolating language. In the example The Mongrels fur was filthy was is used as a separate word
to imply tense. The tense in this portion of text is talking about something in the past. This makes the
English more like an isolating language. This shows that the separate words, the, fur, and was all have
separate meanings. The s in this example is another morpheme however. It gives ownership that
implies that the fur belongs to the mongrel. In the word disagreeable dis and able are both separate
morphemes. Dis means not, able means to have the power to do something, and agree is to confirm.
These morphemes are a little harder to tell apart. In these ways, this shows that the English language
has other qualities of those of agglutinating and inflecting languages.
Languages are complex. English is one of them. The English language is an isolating language,
but it also shows characteristics of inflectional and agglutinating languages. In an isolating language,
there is a one word to one morpheme ratio. Agglutinating languages have the morphemes glued
together and they are easy to tell them apart. In an inflecting language, the morphemes are fused
together and a little harder to tell apart. There are many languages in the world. These languages have
characteristics of agglutinating, inflecting, and isolating languages.