1. Historical linguistics
The birth, evolution, and death of languages

2. Rank Language Population (in millions) % of world’s pop.
1 Chinese (Mandarin)
2 English
3 Spanish
4 Bengali
5 Hindi
6 Portuguese
7 Russian
8 Japanese
9 German
10 Chinese (Wu)
11 Javanese
12 Korean
13 French
14 Vietnamese
15 Telegu

3. Polygenesis vs. monogenesis
Monogenesis prevails in biological evolution
Polygenesis prevails in cultural evolution: independent invention
Polygenesis seems to prevail in remote language origins

4. Causes of language change
Random Drift
Phonetic Assimilation
Language contact:
Borrowing
Interference in acquisition of second language
Institutionalization of formerly aberrant forms.

5. Change in animal systems?
Little evidence that call systems of other primates evolve through time
Data about the past are skimpy.
Linked to genes. Genetic evolution slower than cultural evolution
Whales: the possible exception

6. Language families No evidence for one common ancestor language
But languages can be grouped into families
The role of Sanskrit in the discovery of the Indo-European family

7. Indo-European family Probably originated in north-central Europe
Associated with “Aryan” warriors who were to conquer Europe, India, and parts of Asia
No literary remains
No archeological site can be firmly linked.
Has been hypothetically reconstructed

8. Branches of Indo-European
Italic: Latin and Romance languages
Slavic: Russian, Polish etc/
Celtic: Irish, Gallic, Welsh, Breton
Germanic: German, English, Swedish, et.al.
Indo-Iranian: Hindi, Bengali, Farsi, Pashto

9. Map of Celtic Languages Today

10. European language distribution, present

11. Indo-European Expansion

12. Indo-European languages in times past

13. Indo-European languages around the world

14. Language Families in Europe

15. Indo-European branches in Europe today