Word.ws English Dictionary

proto-languages

proto-languages is the plural of proto-language.

Meaning of proto-language

Noun

proto-language (countable and uncountable, plural proto-languages)

  1. A language which is reconstructed by examining similarities in existing languages in order to deduce the form and aspects of a common ancestor language that is no longer known.
    • Just as Greek and Sanskrit reflect a proto-language, so do the Cypria and the Mahābhārata reflect a proto-story.2025 December 12, Tom Hercules Davies, “Horses, Wheels, Languages: Greek, Mesopotamian and Indic Epic on the Eurasian Steppe”, in The Classical Quarterly, volume 75, number 1, page 5
  2. The early utterances produced by an infant before it acquires a true language.

Questions about proto-languages

What is proto-languages the plural of?
Proto-languages is the plural of proto-language.

Words near proto-languages in the dictionary

  1. proto-Jupiter
  2. Proto-Kartvelian
  3. Proto-Khmuic
  4. Proto-Koreanic
  5. proto-language
  6. proto-languages
  7. proto-Macro-Somali
  8. proto-magnesium
  9. Proto-Malay
  10. Proto-Malayic
  11. Proto-Malayo-Chamic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: proto-languages (page history and authors); proto-language (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “proto-languages.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/proto-languages. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.