Daughter language

In historical linguistics, a daughter language is a language that comes from another language, called its mother language. This happens through a process of genetic descent, where the new language slowly changes over time from the old one. When more than one language comes from the same proto-language, or 'mother language', these languages are called sister languages. They all belong to the same language family.

The idea of mother and daughter languages helps us understand how languages change and grow, like branches on a tree. This is called the tree model of language evolution. It shows how different languages are related, just like family members.

It is important to remember that the idea of a mother language "having" daughter languages can be confusing. Daughter languages are not separate from their mother languages; they are really just the mother language that has changed a lot over time through gradual change. Mother languages usually do not disappear; instead, they evolve into their daughter languages. For example, both Afrikaans and Dutch still exist today, showing that a mother language and its daughter can live together.

Examples

Modern Standard Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi are both versions of the Hindustani language, their mother language. They can understand each other easily except for some special words and writing styles.

Malayalam comes from Old Malayalam, which comes from Middle Tamil, which comes from Proto-South-Dravidian, which comes from Proto-Dravidian.

English comes from Old English, which comes from Proto-Germanic, which comes from Proto-Indo-European.

Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian all come from Latin, which comes from Proto-Italic, which comes from Proto-Indo-European.

Mandarin Chinese comes from Old Mandarin, which comes from Old Chinese, which comes from Proto-Sino-Tibetan.

Bulgarian comes from Old Bulgarian, which comes from Proto-Slavic, which comes from Proto-Indo-European.

German and Yiddish both come from Old High German, which comes from Proto-Germanic, which comes from Proto-Indo-European.

Afrikaans comes from Dutch, which comes from Low Franconian, which comes from Proto-Germanic, which comes from Proto-Indo-European.

Japanese comes from Old Japanese, which comes from Proto-Japonic.

Coptic comes from Ancient Egyptian, which comes through many stages from Proto-Afroasiatic.

Maltese comes from Siculo-Arabic, which comes from Old Arabic, which comes from Proto-Semitic, which comes from Proto-Afroasiatic.

Hiligaynon and Cebuano come from Proto-Visayan, which comes from Proto-Philippine, which comes from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, which comes from Proto-Austronesian.

Turkish comes from Ottoman Turkish, which comes from Old Anatolian Turkish, which comes from Oghuz, which comes from Proto-Common Turkic, which comes from Proto-Turkic.