Comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language and comparative linguistics aims to construct language families, to reconstruct proto-languages and specify the changes that have resulted in the documented languages. To maintain a clear distinction between attested and reconstructed forms, comparative linguists prefix an asterisk to any form that is not found in surviving texts.

Extends: [Comparative linguistics](https://wikipedia.org.ai/Comparative linguistics), [Historical linguistics](https://wikipedia.org.ai/Historical linguistics)