Neighbouring languages include Assamese, Nepali, Bodo, Mising, Minyong, Hills Miri, Tagin, Nishi, Bori, Pailibo, Ramo and Bokar.
Like most central and eastern Tani languages, Galo is largely synthetic and agglutinating.
Two primary lexical tones are present – High and Low – which may reflect two Proto-Tani syllable tones; in modern Galo, the surface TBU (Tone-Bearing Unit) is the usually polysyllabic phonological word.
A robust finite/non-finite asymmetry underlies Galo grammar, and clause chaining and nominalization are both rampant.
No synchronic verb-serialization appears to exist, although what seems to have been proto-verb-serialization has developed into a very large and productive system of derivational suffixes to bound verbal roots.