Aglutinativ

Aglutinativ, often rendered in English as agglutinative language, is a term in linguistic typology describing languages that form words by chaining together a sequence of affixes, each expressing a single grammatical meaning. In such systems morphemes typically retain distinct identities; affixes attach to a base with clear, separable boundaries, and multiple affixes can accumulate on a word.

Typical features include extensive affixation (prefixes, suffixes, and sometimes infixes), a high morpheme-to-word ratio, and relatively little internal fusion between morphemes. Grammatical categories such as tense, mood, aspect, number, case, voice, and evidentiality are conveyed through discrete morphemes attached to the stem. Word forms can become lengthy but remain analyzable as a sequence of morphemes, aiding regularity and clarity in morphology.

Well-known agglutinative languages include Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Swahili, and Basque. These languages exhibit regular, largely transparent suffixation, though details vary: Turkish and Finnish use long stacks of suffixes; Hungarian features vowel harmony; Japanese and Korean mark tense, aspect, and politeness with successive endings. The term is descriptive rather than prescriptive, and many languages show a mix of agglutinative and fusional features.

Classification in typology is relative; languages can display varying degrees of agglutination. Agglutination is not an indicator of difficulty or expressiveness. It contrasts with fusional languages, where affixes may encode multiple grammatical meanings, and with isolating languages, which rely more on word order and separate function words rather than affixation.