In linguistics, a macrofamily, also called a superfamily, is a proposed language family that unites two or more established language families. "Macrofamily" is thus a relative term. It does not designate any particular size of family or any particular time depth of genetic relationship. Rather, the term refers to hypotheses of genetic relationship that are not, or not yet, generally accepted, whether due to lack of documentation or scholarship of the constituent languages, or to an estimated time depth thought by many linguists to be too great for reconstruction. They vary from relatively recent groups such as Macro-Mayan to very broad proposals such as Nostratic, Dené-Caucasian, and Austric. The latter are often called "superfamilies".
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