1. LANGUAGE FAMILIES BY IRENE THOMPSON

2. WHAT IS A LANGUAGE FAMILY? Most languages belong to language families. A language family is a group of related languages that developed from a common historic ancestor, referred to as protolanguage (proto– means ‘early’ in Greek).Greek The ancestral language is usually not known directly, but it is possible to discover many of its features by applying the comparative method that can demonstrate the family status of many languages.comparative method

3. PROTOLANGUAGE Sometimes a protolanguage can be identified with a historically known language. Thus, provincial dialects of Vulgar Latin are known to have given rise to the modern Romance languages, so the *Proto-Romance language is more or less identical to Latin.Vulgar LatinRomance languagesLatin Similarly, Old Norse was the ancestor of Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic.Old NorseNorwegianSwedishDanishIcelandic Sanskrit was the protolanguage of many of the languages of the Indian subcontinent, such as Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu. SanskritBengaliHindiMarathiUrdu Further back in time, all these ancestral languages descended, in turn, from one common ancestor. We call this ancestor *Proto-Indo-European (PIE).*Proto-Indo-European Language families can be subdivided into smaller units called branches. For instance, the Indo-European family has several branches, among them, Germanic, Romance, and Slavic.GermanicRomanceSlavic

4. HOW DO LINGUISTS ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS AMONG LANGUAGES? Sometimes it is relatively easy to establish relationships among languages. Let us look at the Romance languages. We know that Italian is a descendant of Latin, a language that was spoken in Italy two thousand years ago, and one which left a great number of written documents.RomanceItalianLatin The Roman conquest helped spread Latin throughout Europe where it eventually developed into regional dialects. When the Roman Empire broke up, these regional dialects evolved into the modern Romance languages that we know today: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and others.LatinRomanceFrenchItalianPortugueseSpanish These languages form the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. By looking at the word for ‘water’ in three Romance languages, one can easily see the similarities among them.Romance Indo-European language familyRomance Italianacqua Spanishagua Portugueseagua

5. WHAT IF THE ANCESTRAL LANGUAGE LEFT NO RECORDS? The case with Romance languages is unusually easy because their common ancestor — Latin — left many written documents. In most cases, however, the ancestral language was not written. As a result, linguists look at similarities among its modern descendants to establish common origins. Take a look at these examples:Latin It is clear that the word for ‘water’ looks very similar within each group, but not quite as similar across groups. Languages in the first group belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.Germanic branchIndo-European language family Languages in the second group belong to the Slavic branch.Slavic branch Although there are no written records of the ancestral *Proto-Germanic or *Proto-Slavic languages, we have to assume that these two ancestral languages must have existed at some time, just like Latin did.Latin Englishwater Germanwasser Danishvand Russianvoda Polishwoda Czechvoda

6. WHERE DO THESE MYSTERY LANGUAGES BELONG? Here is the word for ‘water’ in two more languages. Do you think these languages belong to any of the branches above? As it turns out, Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.LatvianBaltic branchIndo-European language family Albanian has no close relatives. It does not belong to any of the branches of the Indo- European language family, but it is considered a branch all it’s own. Albanian Basque does not belong to any language family at all.Basque In fact, Basque is a language isolate, i.e., a language that cannot be reliably assigned to any established language family.Basquelanguage isolate Latvianudens Albanianuje Basqueur

7. WHAT IF THERE ARE NO RECORDS, AND WE KNOW LITTLE ABOUT THE LANGUAGES? In many parts of the world, there are no written records, and we don’t know enough about the languages themselves. SO we have to resort to grouping languages on the basis of geography. This is the case with many of the aboriginal languages of Australia, the native Indian languages of the Americas, the tribal languages of Africa, and countless other languages all over the world.

8. HOW MANY LANGUAGE FAMILIES ARE THERE? According to Ethnologue (16th edition), there are 136-147 language families in the world.Ethnologue This figure may not be precise because of our limited knowledge about many of the languages spoken in the most linguistically diverse areas of the world such as Africa. The actual number of families, once these languages are studied and relationships among them are established, will undoubtedly keep changing.

9. WORLD’S LARGEST LANGUAGE FAMILIES The largest language families (those with over 25 languages) contain over 6,523 languages, and together they account for close to 95 percent of all world languages (assuming that there are some 7,000 languages in the world). The remaining families account for only 5 percent of the world languages. In addition, there are 53 languages considered unclassified.

10. Language families Number of languages Where the languages are spoken Niger-Congo1,532 Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

11. Austronesian1,257 Brunei, Cambodia, China, Cook Islands, East Timor, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Indonesia, Kiribati, Madagascar, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mayotte, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Taiwan, Thailand, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, USA, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, Wallis and Futuna Trans New Guinea477 Australia, East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea Sino-Tibetan 449 Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Viet Nam

12. Indo-European439 Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Maldives, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, USA, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Venezuela Afro-Asiatic 374 Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Cameroon, Chad, Cyprus, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen

13. Australian264 Australian Nilo-Saharan 205 Algeria, Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda Oto-Manguean 177 Mexico Austro-Asiatic169 Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda

14. Tai-Kadai92 China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam Dravidian85 India, Nepal, Pakistan Creole82 Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Congo, Curacao, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, French Guiana, Ghana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Macao, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norfolk Island, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Réunion, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, São Tomé e Príncipe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Uganda, United States, Vanuatu

15. Tupian76 Bolivia, Brazil, French Guiana, Paraguay, Peru Language Isolates75 Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mali, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russian Federation, South Korea, Spain, United States, Venezuela Mayan69 Belize, Guatemala, Mexico Altaic 66 Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan Uto-Aztecan 61 El Salvador, Mexico, United States

16. Arawakan59 Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Honduras, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela Torricelli56Papua New Guinea Sepik55Papua New Guinea Quechuan - Quechua is also classified as a macrolanguage, i.e., a family of varieties of a single language that are not distinct enough to be considered separate languages.macrolanguage 46 Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru Na-Dene46Canada, United States Algic44Canada, United States Hmong-Mien38China, Laos, Vietnam Uralic 37 Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Sweden North Caucasian34 Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russian Federation Penutian33Canada, United States

17. Macro-Ge32Bolivia, Brazil Ramu-Lower Sepik32Papua New Guinea Carib31 Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela Panoan28Bolivia, Brazil, Peru Khoisan27 Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania Salishan26Canada, United States Tucanoan25Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador

18. WHAT MAKES LANGUAGES DIFFERENT? In looking at difference or similarity of languages, we will see that some languages are more similar than others. Catalan speech will mostly be understood by Spanish speakers, and it will be easier to learn Slovak if you already speak Russian, for example. Let’s have a go at this adjective ‘easy’: the human brain is extremely economical, and it will use the least amount of information and energy to reach the conclusion it needs. Thus, if someone speaks to you in a language closely related to your own, your brain will be content to just substitute the strangely formed words of the foreigner with the familiar ones you have in your mental lexicon. Strangely – or not so strangely, machine translation is a good indicator of how much two languages are related. Most of today’s machine translation systems work by shoveling together an immense amount of text in both the source and the target language, and derive statistical conclusions of how much a phrase occurs together with its translation in the target text. The closer the two languages are you get the translation by rewriting some words at some places, or little more –, the translation will be good. If the translation isn’t good, you know that the differences between the two languages go deeper than the surface-scraping of today’s technology.