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

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

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

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

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

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

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 3500-2500 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