Identified by its syntactic structure as predominantly analytical.

Partial typology investigates a restricted number of language

features/phenomena - the systems of vowels/consonants, means of

word-formation or the syntactic level units. As a result, several level

typologies are distinguished: a) typology of the phonetic/ phonological

level units; b) typology of the morphological level units; c) typology of

the lexical level units; d) typology of the syntactic level units.

Contrastive linguistics is thus not a unified field of study. The focus

may be on general or on language specific features: the all-embracing

final results of universal and general typologies could help to

successfully perform a scientifically substantiated general classification

of languages.The study may be theoretical, without any immediate

application, or it may be applied, i.e. carried out for a specific purpose.

The Publication of Robert Lados Book ‘Linguistics across cultures’ in

1957 marks the real beginning of modern applied contrastive linguistics.

In later studies, as an alternative for contrastive linguistics, the term

‘Contrastive analysis’ is used. Contrastive Analysis is the method of

analyzing the structure of any two languages with a view to estimate the

differential aspects of their systems.

1.2. Language Classifications

There are two main ways of classifying languages of the world: (1)

grouping languages into families all of whose members derive from a

common ancestor, which is the basis for genetic (genealogical)

classifications, and (2) classifying languages by reference to their

sharing certain predominant features without regard to their origins -

typological classifications.

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1.2.1. Genetic classifications of languages

Genetic classifications are established by historical linguists, who

trace the evolution of languages through the methods of historical

comparative analysis. These linguists compare words in different

languages for similarities in sound (phonetics), meaning (semantics),

form and grammar (morphology), and vocabulary (lexicology), and then

use various criteria to group the languages into families that have a

common origin. This is the approach used by linguists who believe in

monogenism. Its adherents believe that there was once one proto-

language from which all current human languages subsequently derived.

The monogenists include researchers such as the American linguist

Meritt Ruhlen who has attempted to trace the etymological roots of

today’s languages back to their one common ancestor. Although many

modern languages do derive from a single ancestor, it is also possible

that human language arose simultaneously at many different places on

earth and that today’s languages do not have a single common ancestor.

The theory that present language families derive from many original

languages is called polygenism.

The record of written languages does make it possible to use this

method to trace the evolution of today’s languages back a few thousand

years with a fair degree of certainty. In this way, scholars have

constructed an actual family tree that shows how these languages are

related to one another: Latin was the mother of French; Polish is a sister

language of Ukrainian; Scottish and Irish are sister languages whose

common mother is Celtic; the Indian languages are cousins of the