Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to
Other Languages?
• Language family – collection of languages related through
common ancestral language (prior to recorded history)
– Largest is Indo-European (3 billion speakers worldwide)
• Language branch – collection of languages within a family related
to a common language from a few thousand years ago
• Indo-European Branches:
①
②
③
④
⑤
⑥
⑦
⑧
•
Indo-Iranian (Persia/Iran, South Asia)
Romance (Western & Southern Europe)
Germanic (Northern Europe)
Balto-Slavic (Eastern Europe & Russia)
Albanian
Armenian
Greek
Celtic
Language group – collection of languages within a branch with
more recent common ancestral language
Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to
Other Languages?
Germanic Branch
West Germanic Group
North Germanic
East Germanic
High
Low
Old Norse
Gothic
German (high
elevations) –
spoken in
Austrian &
German Alps
English
Swedish
Vandalic
Dutch
Danish
Burgundian
Flemish (Dutch dialect in N.
Belgium)
Norwegian
*ALL ARE EXTINCT*
Afrikaans (Dutch-based
language in South Africa)
Icelandic
Frisian (NE Netherlands) –
German dialect in northern
lowlands
Faroese
Yiddish
Low Saxon
Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to
Other Languages?
• Indo-Iranian Branch
o Most speakers in Indo-European family (1 billion)
o 2 groups: Indic (eastern) & Iranian (western)
o Indic Group (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh)
• Hindi spoken in northern India (1/3 of India’s pop.)
• Hindi began around what is now the city of Delhi
• Hindi is spoken different ways but written 1 way (few could read or write
until recently)
• Urdu spoken in Pakistan (similar to Hindi but written in Arabic – Pakistan is
Muslim)
• 4 language families in India:
o
o
o
o
Indo-European (north) – Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Sanskrit, Urdu, Assamese
Dravidian (south) – Tamil, Telugu
Sino-Tibetan (NE) – Manipuri
Austro-Asiatic (central & eastern highlands)
• 18 official languages in India (90% of India) – about 10 million speak nonofficial languages
• Bengali spoken in Bangladesh
• English spoken in South Asia due to British colonial legacy
Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to
Other Languages?
• Indo-Iranian Branch
o Iranian Group
•
•
•
•
Persian (Farsi) spoken in Iran
Pashto (Pashtun) spoken in Afghanistan
Kurdish spoken by Kurds in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria
All use Arabic alphabet
• Balto-Slavic Branch
o 2 groups formed after Slavic migration from Asia to Europe in 600s AD
o East Slavic & Baltic Groups
• Russian – 80% of Russia; important during USSR days (forced others to speak
Russian); Eastern Europe learned Russian as 2nd language during Cold War
• Ukrainian & Belarusian
• Break up of USSR partly due to desire for cultural diversity among different culture
groups (rejection of Russian dominance)
• Russian, Ukrainian, & Belarusian use Cyrillic alphabet
o West & South Slavic Groups
•
•
•
•
West (Polish, Czech, & Slovak) – 1994 breakup of Czechoslovakia
South (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian) – former Yugoslavia
Bosnian & Croatian use Roman alphabet; Montenegrin & Serbian use Cyrillic
Small differences but isolation, dislike, independence, & desire for unique identity
Cyrillic
Alphabet
Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to
Other Languages?
• Romance Branch
o Evolved from Latin (language of Roman Empire)
o 5 major languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese,
Romanian (separated from other Romance language areas by
Slavic speakers)
o Minor Romance languages: Romansh (in Switzerland); Catalan
(Andorra & eastern Spain near Barcelona); Sardinian (mix of
Italian, Spanish, & Arabic); Ladin (south Tyrol in Italy); Friulian
(NE Italy); Ladino (mix of Spanish, Greek, Turkish, & Hebrew
spoken by Sephardic Jews in Israel)
o In Europe, national borders approximately follows languages
o Origin & Diffusion of Romance languages
• 2,000 years ago, Latin spread by Roman Empire (conquer, trade, roads)
and native languages suppressed
• Latin varied due to adoption of native language words & relative
isolation (fall of empire brought increased isolation)
• Vulgar Latin – spoken, not written (used by commoners & soldiers)
Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to
Other Languages?
• Romance Branch
o Romance Language Dialects
• French – Francien (standard) near Paris; Occitan, Auvergnar, Gascon, Provencal
• Spanish – Castilian (near Madrid); Aragon, Navarre, Leon, Asturias, Santander
• 90% of Spanish & Portuguese speakers live outside Europe – diffused to
Americas by explorers & colonists (Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494; Brazil to
Portugal, rest Spain)
• Differences between Americas & Spain/Portugal
o Is language a dialect or a distinct language?
o Moldovan – Romanian dialect; Galician – Portuguese dialect; Flemish – Dutch
dialect
o Italian: Napoletano-Calebrese & Sicilian in south; Lombard, Piemontese,
Venetian, & Liguria in north
o Creole – mix of colonizer’s & indigenous languages; French Creole in Haiti;
Papiamento in Netherlands Antilles (Spanish, Dutch, native); Portuguese
Creole in Cape Verde
• 6 Official UN Languages – English, French, Spanish, Russian,
Mandarin, Arabic
Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to
Other Languages?
o Origin & Diffusion of Indo-European
o Cannot accurately determine – internal evidence of Proto-IndoEuropean language
o Common roots for some words but not all (oak, bear, deer, bee,
winter, snow but not rice, camel, ocean) - suggests cold but not
near ocean
o Marija Gimbutas hypothesis – Kurgan people 4300 BC in steppes
of Russia & Kazakhstan; nomadic herders who moved to Europe,
Iran, Siberia, South Asia (became conquering warriors 3500-2500
BC)
o Colin Renfrew & Russell Gray Hypothesis – 2,000 years before
Kurgans; began in Anatolia (Turkey) and spread to Greece (then
Europe) & Iran (then South Asia and Kurgan hearth); spread by
agriculture (food surplus or lack) not conquest
• Polyglot - multilingual
Possible diffusion of Indo-European