Languages

Where did our language come from? Probably started as a simple way of communicating between primitive humans to coordinate hunting, alert each other to danger, etc about 2 million years ago. As humans spread across the globe, different groups developed different words and sounds. There may be 5,000-7,000 languages on Earth, but some are extinct.

Types of languages Oral (spoken, signed) Written (With alphabets, symbols, characters, hieroglyphs, braille, etc)

Major Language Families Indo-European Afro-Asiatic Sino-Tibetan Niger-Congo

Major Language Families Afro-Asiatic: Arabic, Somali, Hebrew, Amharic, Tuareg Sino-Tibetan: The various Chinese dialects, Burmese, Tibetan

Major Language Families Niger-Congo: Many various languages of Sub-Saharan Africa Indo-European: Romance, Hellenic, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Indo-Iranian

Indo-European Languages Probably started in between Europe and Asia, and spread into western Europe and India, evolving into related languages in different regions Explorers and settlers eventually spread these languages into Australia, North America, and South America

Alphabets: Each sound is represented by a letter, which are combined to make words. Latin Alphabet

Cyrillic (Russian) Alphabet Alphabets: Each sound is represented by a letter, which are combined to make words. Cyrillic (Russian) Alphabet

Alphabets: Each sound is represented by a letter, which are combined to make words. Greek Alphabet

Alphabets: Each sound is represented by a letter, which are combined to make words. Hebrew Alphabet

Alphabets: Each sound is represented by a letter, which are combined to make words. Arabic Alphabet

Alphabets: Each sound is represented by a letter, which are combined to make words. Sanskrit Alphabet

Chinese Korean Japanese Characters: Each word is represented by a symbol, or combination of symbols Chinese Korean Japanese