a) said of a language, characterized by a prevalence of relatively long words containing a large number of morphemes. Typically, the morphemes are bound (i.e., they cannot stand alone as independent words). An example of a polysynthetic language is Ojibwe, where:
, baataanitaaanishinaabemong = "being able to speak Ojibwe."
b) Having layers of twin crystals
, ngiinitaaozhibiiamaadimin = "we used to write to each other."
See Also: oligosynthetic, polysynthesis, polysynthesism, synthetic
Wikipedia foundation.