Indo-European Language Family
Indo-European Family of Languages
Various
languages in the world originated as a result of divergent development from a
parent language. Such languages which have connections with each other are
called a family of language. One such mother language is Indo-European, earlier
termed Aryan and Indo-Germanic. The parent language is believed to have been
spoken during a time period of 3000-2000 BC in the area of South-Western
Russia. We have no written record of the common Indo-European language. Its
descendent languages show various degrees of similarity to one another, the
similarity bearing a more or less direct relationship to their geographical
distribution.
There
are eight branches in the Indo-European language family. They are divided into
the Satem and Centum groups.
The
Satem group consists of
- 1. Indo-Iranian
- 2. Albanian
- 3. Armenia
- 4. Balto-Slavic
The
Centum group consists of
- 1. Hellenic
- 2. Celtic
- 3. Italic
- 4. Germanic
1. Indo-Iranian:
This branch can be further divided into Indian and Iranian languages.
a. Indian
§ The
oldest available scripts of the Indian language are the Vedas, Aranyakas,
Brahmans and the Upanishads written in Vedic Sanskrit.
§ The
use of Sanskrit was extended later to various writings outside the sphere of
religion, under the influence of grammarians like Panini. The medium used was
Classical Sanskrit, which was used to write Ramayana and Mahabharata.
§ Alongside
Sanskrit, there also existed a large
number of local dialects in colloquial use, known as Prakrits. The modern
languages descended from Sanskrit and Prakrit
are spoken in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
§ The
most important of them are Hindi, Urdu,
Bengali, Marathi and Punjabi.
b. Iranian
§ Northwest
of India and covering the great plateau of Iran is the important group of
languages called Iranian.
§ The
important languages are Persian, Afghan
and Baluchi spoken in the eastern regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan and Kurdish in Kurdistan.
2. Albanian
§ Northwest
of Greece on the eastern coast of the Adriatic is the small branch named
Albanian.
§ Possibly,
the modern remnant of Illyrian, we have records of it from the 7th
century A.D.
3. Armenian
§ Armenian
is found in a small area south of the Caucasus Mountains and the eastern end of
the Black Sea.
§ Armenian
is known to us from about the 5th century A.D through a translation
of the Bible in the language.
4. Balto-Slavic
§ The
Balto-Slavic branch covers a vast area in the eastern part of Europe. It falls
into two groups-Baltic and Slavic.
§ Baltic
languages- Prussian, Lithuanian and Lettish.
§ Slavic
languages have three divisions- East Slavic, West Slavic and South Slavic.
§ East
Slavic- Great, White and Little Russian.
§ West
Slavic- Polish, Czech, Sorbian
§ South
Slavic- Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian,
Slovene
5. Hellenic
§ Hellenic
languages constitute the languages spoken in and around the Greek region.
§ Dialects
of Greek are members of this branch. They are Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadian-Cyprian, Doric and North-west Greek. Of these, Attic,
a sub-dialect of Ionic, the dialect of the city of Athens, is by far the most
studied. Its importance is due to the dominant political and commercial position
of Athens from the 5th century and the civilization that grew up
there.
6. Celtic
§ Celtic
group of languages was at one time, one of the most extensive groups in the
Indo-European family. Today, Celtic languages are found only in the far corners
of France and the British Isles.
§ The
main languages are Welsh, Gallic
(spoken in Gaul, conquered by Caesar and replaced by Latin), Irish Gaelic, Scotttish Gaelic and Manx.
§ The
remnants of this family of languages are are losing ground everywhere. These
are spoken only by minorities in France and the British Isles.
7. Italic
§ The
Italic branch has its centre in Italy, and to most people, Italy in ancient
times suggests Rome and the languages of Rome.
§ The
main languages in the branch were Latin,
Umbrian and Oscan. The other languages were gradually driven out as Rome became
politically dominant throughout Italy.
§ The
various languages that represent the survival of Latin in the different part of
the Roman Empire are known as the Romance languages. The most extensive of the
Romance languages are French, Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Provencal and Catalan.
8. Germanic
§ The
common form that the languages of the Germanic branch had before they became
differentiated is known as Germanic or Proto-Germanic.
§ The
languages descended from it falls into three groups: East Germanic, North
Germanic and West Germanic.
§ East
Germanic: The principal language is Gothic.
Our knowledge of Gothic is wholly due to a translation of the Gospels and other
parts of the New Testament made by Bishop Ulfilas in the 4th
century.
§ North
Germanic is found in Scandinavia, Denmark, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. They
fall into two groups: the East Norse, including Swedish and Danish and
the West Norse including Norwegian
and Icelandic.
§ West
Germanic is of chief interest to us as the group to which English belongs. It
is divided into High German, Low German and Anglo Frisian. Modern German descended from High German and Dutch from the Low German. Anglo Frisian evolved into Anglo Saxon,
which further changed into Middle English, from which we have the Modern English language.
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