THE INDO-EUROPEAN

FAMILY OF
LANGUAGES
I Geography of Language

A. Language is the most important way culture is
transmitted
B. Language can shape the attitudes,
understandings, and the responses of the society
to which it belongs.
C. There are literally thousands of languages that
are spoken throughout world
D. Language is a mark of cultural diversity and
identity that helps distinguish social groups.

II Intro to Languages

A. No official numbers of how many languages there
are. Between 4-7 thousand
B. Language is an organized system of spoken words by
which people communicate with each other with mutual
comprehension.
D. More than half of the worlds people speak just 8
languages
F. Some estimate that only 600 languages will exist by
2100

Family of languages
It is a group of languages that are related to one another
in terms of (genetic) origin

They share a common ancestor

Features such as lexicon, phonology, morphology and
syntax

It contains several subdivisions called branches

Major Language Families
Percentage of World Population
Fig. 5-11a: The percentage of world population speaking each of the main language
f amilies. Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan together represent almost
75% of the worlds people.
Indo-European family
It refers to a family of languages which by about 1000
BC were spoken over a large part of Europe and parts of
southwestern and southern Asia


It contains about 140 languages
II Origin and Diffusion of Indo-
European Languages
A. Origin of the Indo-European Language
1. It can not be proven that there was a single ancestor to
the Indo-European language family but there is
evidence that a Proto-Indo-European language did
exist.
2. Evidence is found in similar words in different
languages such as oak, bear, deer, and pheasant and
other words that could have been a part of daily life.
3. Indo-European languages share similar words for
winter and snow, but not for ocean. Linguists believe
that the Proto-Indo-European language came from a
cold climate that did not have contact with the ocean.
B. Diffusion of the Indo European
language
There are two theories about the diffusion of the
language.
1. First is called the Kurgan theory named after the
Kurgan people who lived in 4300 B.C. they came
from the steppes near the boarder of Russia and
Kazakhstan. They were nomads who
domesticated the horse and cattle and moved
west in search of grasslands. They used the horse
as a weapon to conquer Southwest Asia and the
Balkan peninsula.
Kurgan Theory of Indo-European Origin
Kurgan hearth north of the Caspian Sea, beginning about 7,000
years ago.

Fig. 5-9: In the Kurgan theory, Proto-Indo-European diffused from the Kurgan
hearth north of the Caspian Sea, beginning about 7,000 years ago.



2. The other theory is that it came from
eastern Anatolia, or present day Turkey.
This idea believes the language spread
by agricultural practices through Greece,
Italy, up into central and western Europe
Branches
Anatolian: Completely extinct. Only
archeological discoveries (in Turkey)
demonstrate its existence

Indo-Iranian: It contains two main
subdivisions: Indic (Indo-Aryan) and
Iranian


Hellenic: contains the languages spoken in
the peloponnese peninsula, like Attic-Ionic,
Arcado-Cyprian and Doric

Italic: contains the Latin, the creadle of the
western civilization. The romances languages,
like: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese,
Catalan, and Rumanian
Germanic: includes English and belong to the north-
western part of Europe.
German spoken today is High German
English comes from Low German which was spoken in
the northern parts of Germany.
Germanic also included the Scandinavian languages of
Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, which all
come from Old Norse.

Germanic Branch of Indo-European
Fig. 5-6: The Germanic branch today is divided into North and West Germanic
groups. English is in the West Germanic group.
English Speaking Countries
English is the official language
in 42 countries, including some in which it is not the most widely
spoken language. It is also used and understood in many others.

Fig. 5-1: English is the official language in 42 countries, including some in which it is
not the most widely spoken language. It is also used and understood in
many others.

Celtic: divided into continental and insular. Celtiberian,
Lepontic, Brittanic, Welsh, Scots Gaelic.

Tocharian: found in archeological excavations in
Chinese Turkestan


Baltic: survives in two languages: Lithuanian and
Latvian (Lettish)
Slavic: south slavic Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian,
Croatian, Slovenian. West Slavic, which comprises
Czech, Slovak, Polish, Kashubian and East Slavic, made
up of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarussian.

Armenian: first attested in religious documents,
influenced by Greek, Arabic, Syriac, and Persian.
Albanic: Gheg and Tosk. Influenced by its neighbours
Greek, Slavic, and Turkish, as well as Latin.

Fragmentary languages: In addition to the 11 major
subgroups, there are also many apparently unaffiliated
languages which survive only in fragments such as
glosses and sporadic inscriptions.
Aspects of the structure of Proto-
Indo-European family of languages
These aspects are the ones that
allow researchers to find out
similarities in a family of
languages, these are: Phonology,
Morphology and Syntax.