What is the difference in characteristics between agglutinating and isolating languages?

Answer 1

Agglutinating languages add many word-elements together to get the sense together, adding together verbs, pronouns, tenses and everything into since words. Words can become as long as

jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

in agglutinating languages.

Isolating languages isolate their word-parts. There is no such thing as an inflection in isolating (or agglutinating) languages. Meaning is added by separated (not joined) word-elements. The above in an isolating language would appear as

jjj jjjj jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj jjjjjjjj jjjjjjjjjj jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj jjjjjjjjj jjjjj

Imagine all those j's mean The thin cat sat on the carpet

In agglutinating languages, the whole lot can be joined. Where a general formula can be shown by j's, the j's represent Thethincatsatonthecarpet in an agglutinating language, or perhaps thethincatsat onthecarpet. You won't get that in isolating languages.

In English, you have sit, sits, sat, sitting, all inflections and all attached to the main word-stem (sit). In isolating languages you will have the equivalent of

sit, sit s, sit pasttense-indicator, sit continuoustense-indicator......all as separated particles. A single word is modified without inflections but as detached pronoun agreement-markers, tense markers, mood indicators and whatever, all meaning in the separate particles. The very opposite of an agglutinating language which lumps all meaning together.

Xhosa is agglutinating as a real-life example. Chinese is isolating.

Answer 2

Agglutinating languages use affixes to represent multiple grammatical functions within a single word, resulting in longer, more complex words. Isolating languages, on the other hand, use separate words to represent grammatical functions, resulting in shorter, simpler words. Agglutinating languages typically have a higher morpheme-to-word ratio compared to isolating languages.