Unclassified languages are languages whose genetic affiliation has not been established, mostly due to lack of reliable data. The question of the genetic affiliation of languages belongs to the domain of historical linguistics. If this state of affairs continues even after intense study of the language and efforts to connect it to other languages, it is termed a language isolate. Languages can be considered unclassified for a variety of reasons, including:
Absence of data, eg:
Paucity of data, eg:
Not closely related to its neighbors, and not commonly examined due to paucity of data, eg:
Not closely related to any other language, and academic consensus on its more distant relations not yet established, eg:
Also, languages whose very existence is dubious fall into this category by default, eg:
See also: List of unclassified languages according to the Ethnologue
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