Word.ws English Dictionary

protolanguage

protolanguage is the alternative form 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.

Forms of protolanguage

pluralprotolanguages

Questions about protolanguage

What is protolanguage the alternative form of?
Protolanguage is the alternative form of proto-language.

Words near protolanguage in the dictionary

  1. protokaryotype
  2. protokaryotypes
  3. protokylol
  4. protolacteal
  5. protolang
  6. protolanguage
  7. protolanguages
  8. protolerogenic
  9. protolexicon
  10. protolexicons
  11. protoliberal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: protolanguage (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.

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