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GlossaForge

Explore the world's languages — their families, geography, typology, endangerment, and connections. An evidence-based toolkit for linguists, polyglots, and the curious.

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Languages
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Families
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Speakers
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Endangered
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Extinct
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World Map

Interactive map of 500+ languages. Color by family, endangerment, word order, or morphology. Filter and search in real time.

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Language Explorer

Search and filter by name, family, region, typological features, or endangerment status. View full typological profiles.

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Family Trees

Hierarchical view of all language families — from Indo-European to isolates. Browse branches and individual languages.

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Linguistics Tools

Mutual intelligibility matcher, grammatical similarity finder, side-by-side comparison, historical timeline, and world statistics.

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Sources & Methods

Data sources, methodology notes, and academic references. Built on Glottolog, WALS, PHOIBLE, and UNESCO Atlas.

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Language Explorer

Search and filter 500+ world languages. Click any card for a full typological profile.

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Family
Region
Status

Language Families

Hierarchical view of the world's language families, branches, and individual languages.

Search

Linguistics Tools

Analyze languages with matching, comparison, and visualization tools.

Mutual Intelligibility Matcher

Select a language to see which others its speakers can understand — and to what degree. Intelligibility is often asymmetric.

Select Language
Grammatical Similarity Finder

Find languages that share grammatical features — even across unrelated families. Scored across word order, morphology, case alignment, tone, gender, and more.

Select Language
Language Comparison

Select 2–5 languages for a side-by-side typological comparison. Matching features are highlighted.

Historical Timeline

Extinct and historical languages across time. Filter by family.

Filter by Family
World Language Statistics

Global overview of language diversity, distribution, and endangerment.

Sources & Methodology

Data provenance, scoring methodology, and academic references.

Data Sources
Glottolog

Comprehensive catalogue of the world's languages, language families, and dialects. Provides ISO 639-3 codes, geographic coordinates, and family classification.

glottolog.org
WALS — World Atlas of Language Structures

Database of structural properties of languages. Primary source for typological features like word order, morphological type, and case alignment.

wals.info
PHOIBLE

Repository of cross-linguistic phonological inventory data. Source for consonant/vowel inventory sizes, click sounds, ejectives, and tonal information.

phoible.org
UNESCO Atlas of World's Languages in Danger

Classification of languages by endangerment: vulnerable, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered, and extinct.

unesco.org/languages-atlas
Ethnologue

Reference publication cataloging all known living languages. Source for speaker population estimates, country-level distribution, and EGIDS vitality levels.

ethnologue.com
Academic Literature

Mutual intelligibility scores from Gooskens (2007), Tang & van Heuven (2009), and Golubovic & Gooskens (2020).

Grammatical Similarity Score
FeatureWeightRationale
Word Order15%SOV, SVO, VSO, etc.
Morphological Type15%Isolating, agglutinative, fusional, polysynthetic
Case Alignment12%Nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive, etc.
Case Count8%Number of grammatical cases
Tone System10%None, simple, complex
Gender System8%None, 2-gender, 3-gender, classifier, noun class
Evidentiality7%Grammaticalized source-of-information marking
Vowel Harmony5%Presence of vowel harmony system
Consonant Inventory5%Small, average, large, very large
Vowel Inventory5%Small, average, large
Definiteness5%Article system type
Negation Type5%Negation strategy
Mutual Intelligibility Scores
Scores represent the percentage of content a listener can understand without prior study. Scores are directional — a Portuguese speaker may understand more Spanish than vice versa. Categories: Very High (80%+), High (60–79%), Moderate (40–59%), Low (20–39%), Minimal (<20%).