1. Indo-European Language Family
APHG 5-2
Indo-European Language Family

2. 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 in 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:
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

3. 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*
Yiddish
Afrikaans (Dutch-based language in South Africa)
Icelandic
Frisian (NE Netherlands) – German dialect in northern lowlands
Faroese
Low Saxon

4. Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
Indo-Iranian Branch
Most speakers in Indo-European family (1 billion)
2 groups: Indic (eastern) & Iranian (western)
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:
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 non-official languages
Bengali spoken in Bangladesh
English spoken in South Asia due to British colonial legacy

5. Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
Indo-Iranian Branch
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
2 groups formed after Slavic migration from Asia to Europe in 600s AD
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
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

6. Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
Romance Branch
Evolved from Latin (language of Roman Empire)
5 major languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian (separated from other Romance language areas by Slavic speakers)
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)
In Europe, national borders approximately follows languages
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)
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

7. Key Issue #2: Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
Romance Branch
Is language a dialect or a distinct language?
Moldovan – Romanian dialect; Galician – Portuguese dialect; Flemish – Dutch dialect
Italian: Napoletano-Calebrese & Sicilian in south; Lombard, Piemontese, Venetian, & Liguria in north
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
Origin & Diffusion of Indo-European
Cannot accurately determine – internal evidence of Proto-Indo-European language
Common roots for some words but not all (oak, bear, deer, bee, winter, snow but not rice, camel, snow) suggests cold but not near ocean
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 BC)
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