Indo-European Language Branch
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Transcript Indo-European Language Branch
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