This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
A language family entry records a specific, named group of related languages descended from a documented or reconstructed common ancestor, considered here specifically for its bearing on scripture, liturgy and sacred text, which languages a tradition's core texts were composed in and which related languages later translations and liturgies reached. Ethnologue, the standard reference catalog of the world's living languages, classifies languages into their documented families as a basic, checkable fact about each one, the same classification a scripture or liturgical language entry depends on.
An entry records a family's documented member languages, its established or proposed common ancestor, and which of its member languages carry a documented religious textual tradition, scripture, liturgy, prayer, since a family's religious significance often rests on one or two specific member languages rather than the family as a whole.
Where a family's classification is itself debated by linguists, a proposed grouping not yet demonstrated by the standard comparative method, an entry records that debate honestly rather than presenting a contested classification as settled.
An entry also records, where Ethnologue's own catalog notes it, roughly how many living speakers a family's religiously significant member language retains today, since a scripture or liturgical language's documented vitality is a separate, checkable fact from its historical religious importance and the two can diverge sharply.