Indo-European Language Family
Why is English related to Other Languages?
English = Indo-European language family
A language family- a collection of langs related thru a common ancestor that existed long before recorded history.
Indo-European is the language family with the most speakers (~3 bil).
Indo-European Branches
W/in lang families are language branches A language branch- a collection of langs
related thru a common ancestor that existed thousands of years ago. differences are not as extensive/old as with lang.
families archaeological evidence can confirm that the
branches derived from the same family
Indo-European is divided into 8 branches: Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Greek, Albanian, Celtic, and Armenian
Diagram the BranchesOn the paper provided, create a
diagram/hierarchy of Indo-European family treeBe sure to include all the languages on the
handout provided. Include information about # of speakers (if impt)
and where it will be spoken.You may want to note which are official
languages or have various alphabetsOutline the origin & diffusion section on the
back/ own paper
Germanic Branch
English = Germanic Language Branch West Germanic Group
A language group is a collection of langs w/in a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past, & display relatively few differences in grammar and vocab
West Germanic Group
Includes the languages of German & English, Afrikaans, and Dutch High Sub-Group:
German is spoken mainly in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
Low Sub-Group: English is spoken on every continent (key places: Great
Britain, United States, Canada, India, Japan, and Australia)
Dutch in the Netherlands, Flemish in Belgium Afrikaans in South Africa & Namibia (like Dutch)
North Germanic Group
Sometimes called Nordic North Germanic
languages of Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Danish Derived from Old Norse
English word Icelandic wordSpoken comparison
apple epli listen (help·info)
book bók listen (help·info)
high/hair hár listen (help·info)
house hús listen (help·info)
mother móðir listen (help·info)
night nótt listen (help·info)
stone steinn listen (help·info)
that það listen (help·info)
word orð
Romance Branch
The Romance Branch evolved from the Latin lang. spoken by Romans 2,000 years ago
The four most common Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and ItalianFrench, and ItalianFrench and Spanish are two of the six
official UN languages
Romance Branch
RomanianRomanian in Romania and MoldovaOnly one spatially separated
Others include RomanshRomansh (one of Switzerland’s 4 official languages), and CatalanCatalan (spoken in Spain, and the official language of Andorra)4 more in Europe
Haiti: French Creole is ex. of Rom. language spoken outside Eur.
Creole
creolized language = mix of a colonial language and an indigenous langForms when a colonized grp adopts the
lang of the dominant grp, but makes some changes (usually involving vocab from native lang or grammar changes)
History of the Romance Languages
Latin was spread by the soldiers of the Roman EmpireWhen they conquered a group of people,
they taught them LatinThe ppl spoke a different form of Latin
called Vulgar Latin, or Latin of the People.Ex: The Latin word for horse is equus, but the
Vulgar Latin word for horse was caballus. Italian: cavallor, Spanish: caballo, Portuguese: cavalo, and French: cheval
Spanish and Portuguese
Both of these languages are important around the world due to Spanish and Portuguese imperialismSpanish is the official language in 18 Latin
American countriesLingua franca of region
Portuguese is the official language of Brazil
Balto-Slavic Branch
Roots are more AsianDue to isolation of different groups when
they arrived in Eastern Europe, different languages emergedEast*, West, South Slavic and Baltic GROUP
Languages include: UkrainianUkrainian, , RussianRussian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and the Baltic langs
Balto-Slavic Branch
Russian is most widely spoken lang, and is spoken by 80% of the RussiansRussian is one of the 6 official languages of
the UNRussification post-WWII
Ukrainian and Belarusian next in # for East Slavic.
The Eastern Baltic languages include Latvian and Lithuanian.
Balto-Slavic Branch
Main West Slavic languages are Polish (Poland), Czech and Slovak (former Czechoslovakia) Speakers of Czech and Slovak can understand
each other
South Slavic- Slovene in Slovenia, Macedonian in Macedonia, and Serbo-Croatian is spoken by rest of Yugo. w/ conflicts, similarities are NOT being preserved Montenegrans & Serbs use Cyrillic alphabet
Indo-Iranian Branch
The Indo-Iranian branch has the most speakers.
It has over 100 langs with over 1 billion native speakers
The branch includes the languages of Persian (Farsi), Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi
The Indic (eastern) Group
1/3 of Indians use HindiHindiSpoken many different ways, but there is 1
common written form of the language called Devanagari
India’s constitution recognizes 18 official languages4 diff lang. families present
The Indic (Eastern) Group
Pakistan’s principal language is Urdu, and the written form is Arabic alphabet
Bangladesh’s main language is Bengali
English not official. Only 1% speak itBut often common language,
de facto lang.
The Iranian (Western) Group
Indo-Iranian languages are spoken in Iran and neighboring countriesPersian, or Farsi, is main lang in Iran.Other languages include Kurdish and Pashto
(Pathan/Pashtun)
All of these are written w/ Arabic alphabet.
Other Languages
Greek, Albanian, Celtic, and Armenian are in the Indo-European family, but stand on their own
Greek: in Greece, 12 million native speakers. Armenian: in Armenia, 6 million native speakers. Albanian: in Albania (some Serbia, Italy), 7.3
million native speakers Celtic: in UK (some France), 1.4 million
Ex: Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish
Gimbutas: war
Renfrew: agriculture
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