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 Branches

On the paper provided, create a
diagram/hierarchy of Indo-European family
tree
Be 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 alphabets
 Outline 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 word
apple
epli
book
bók
high/hair
hár
house
hús
mother
móðir
night
nótt
stone
steinn
that
það
word
orð
S
c
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,
French, and Italian


French and Spanish are two of the six
official UN languages
Romance Branch

Romanian in Romania and Moldova


Others include Romansh (one of
Switzerland’s 4 official languages), and
Catalan (spoken in Spain, and the official
language of Andorra)


Only one spatially separated
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 lang

Forms 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 Empire


When they conquered a group of people,
they taught them Latin
The 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 imperialism

Spanish is the official language in 18 Latin
American countries


Lingua franca of region
Portuguese is the official language of Brazil
Balto-Slavic Branch
Roots are more Asian
 Due to isolation of different groups when
they arrived in Eastern Europe, different
languages emerged



East*, West, South Slavic and Baltic
GROUP
Languages include: Ukrainian, Russian,
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 Russians
Russian is one of the 6 official languages of
the UN
 Russification 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 SerboCroatian 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 Hindi


Spoken many different ways, but there is 1
common written form of the language called
Devanagari
India’s constitution recognizes 18 official
languages

4 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 it

But often common language,

de facto lang.
The Iranian (Western) Group

Indo-Iranian languages are spoken in
Iran and neighboring countries
Persian, 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