Areal feature

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Areal feature" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area,^[1] particularly when such features are not descended from a common ancestor or proto-language. An areal feature is contrasted with genetic relationship determined similarity within the same language family. Features may diffuse from one dominant language to neighbouring languages (see "sprachbund").

Genetic relationships are represented in the family tree model of language change, and areal relationships are represented in the wave model.