An oligosynthetic language (from the Greek , meaning "few" or "little") is any language using very few morphemes, perhaps only a hundred, which combine synthetically. The concept of an oligosynthetic language type was proposed by Benjamin Whorf to describe the Native American language Nahuatl, although he did not further pursue this idea.
Because no natural language has been shown to exhibit oligosynthetic properties, some linguists regard true oligosynthesis as impossible or impractical for productive use by humans; its use is limited to some constructed languages, such as Ygyde, Newspeak, Sona, and aUI.
|
