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Macrofamily
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In linguistics, a macrofamily is a proposed language family that unites two or more language families that are already recognized.
"Macrofamily" is thus a relative term. It does not designate any particular size of language family or any particular depth of genetic relationship. Rather, it refers to theories of genetic relationship that are newly proposed or for whatever reason are not, or not yet, generally accepted.
For example, Afro-Asiatic and Eurasiatic are both large language families dating back to the Stone Age, but Afro-Asiatic is almost invariably called a "language family" because it is now generally accepted, while Eurasiatic is often called a "macrofamily" because the hypothesis it represents is new and controversial.
A synonym for "macrofamily" is "superfamily", but unlike "macrofamily" it often has a pejorative connotation. "Macrofamily" is therefore usually the preferable term, outside of polemic contexts.