Genetic relationship (linguistics)

Two languages have a genetic relationship, and belong to the same language family, if both are descended from a common ancestor through the process of language change, or one is descended from the other. The term and the process of language evolution are independent of, and not reliant on, the terminology, understanding, and theories related to genetics in the biological sense, so, to avoid confusion, some linguists prefer the term genealogical relationship.[1][2]^: 184

An example of linguistic genetic relationship would be between the Romance languages, such as Spanish, French, and Romanian, all descended from the spoken Latin of ancient Rome.[note 1][3]

Language relationships can inform to some extent about possible genetic relationships in the biological sense. For example, if all languages stem from a single origin, it strongly implies that all humanity may have been collected together at some point in history. However, counterexamples exist, such as in the case of adoption and intermixing of specific languages.^{[clarification needed][citation needed]}