LANGUAGE FAMILIESBY IRENE THOMPSON

WHAT IS A LANGUAGE FAMILY?

• Most languages belong to language families. • A language family is a group of related languages that developed from a

common historic ancestor, referred to as protolanguage (proto– means ‘early’ in Greek).

• The ancestral language is usually not known directly, but it is possible to discover many of its features by applying the comparative method that can demonstrate the family status of many languages.

PROTOLANGUAGE

• Sometimes a protolanguage can be identified with a historically known language. Thus, provincial dialects of Vulgar Latin are known to have given rise to the modern Romance languages, so the *Proto-Romance language is more or less identical to Latin.

• Similarly, Old Norse was the ancestor of Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic.

• Sanskrit was the protolanguage of many of the languages of the Indian subcontinent, such as Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu.

• Further back in time, all these ancestral languages descended, in turn, from one common ancestor. We call this ancestor *Proto-Indo-European (PIE).

• Language families can be subdivided into smaller units called branches. For instance, the Indo-European family has several branches, among them, Germanic, Romance, and Slavic.

HOW DO LINGUISTS ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS AMONG LANGUAGES?• Sometimes it is relatively easy to establish relationships among languages.

• Let us look at the Romance languages. We know that Italian is a descendant of Latin, a language that was spoken in Italy two thousand years ago, and one which left a great number of written documents.

• The Roman conquest helped spread Latin throughout Europe where it eventually developed into regional dialects. When the Roman Empire broke up, these regional dialects evolved into the modern Romance languages that we know today: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and others.

• These languages form the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. By looking at the word for ‘water’ in three Romance languages, one can easily see the similarities among them.

Italian acqua

Spanish agua

Portuguese agua

WHAT IF THE ANCESTRAL LANGUAGE LEFT NO RECORDS?• The case with Romance languages is unusually easy because their common ancestor — Latin — left many

written documents. In most cases, however, the ancestral language was not written. As a result, linguists look at similarities among its modern descendants to establish common origins. Take a look at these examples:

• It is clear that the word for ‘water’ looks very similar within each group, but not quite as similar across groups.

• Languages in the first group belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.

• Languages in the second group belong to the Slavic branch.

• Although there are no written records of the ancestral *Proto-Germanic or *Proto-Slavic languages, we have to assume that these two ancestral languages must have existed at some time, just like Latin did.

English water

German wasser

Danish vand

Russian voda

Polish woda

Czech voda

WHERE DO THESE MYSTERY LANGUAGES BELONG?• Here is the word for ‘water’ in two more languages. Do you think these languages belong to

any of the branches above?

• As it turns out, Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.

• Albanian has no close relatives. It does not belong to any of the branches of the Indo-European language family, but it is considered a branch all it’s own.

• Basque does not belong to any language family at all.

• In fact, Basque is a language isolate, i.e., a language that cannot be reliably assigned to any established language family.

Latvian udensAlbanian ujeBasque ur

WHAT IF THERE ARE NO RECORDS, AND WE KNOW LITTLE ABOUT THE LANGUAGES?

• In many parts of the world, there are no written records, and we don’t know enough about the languages themselves.

• SO we have to resort to grouping languages on the basis of geography. • This is the case with many of the aboriginal languages of Australia, the native

Indian languages of the Americas, the tribal languages of Africa, and countless other languages all over the world.

HOW MANY LANGUAGE FAMILIES ARE THERE?

• According to Ethnologue (16th edition), there are 136-147 language families in the world.

• This figure may not be precise because of our limited knowledge about many of the languages spoken in the most linguistically diverse areas of the world such as Africa.

• The actual number of families, once these languages are studied and relationships among them are established, will undoubtedly keep changing.

WORLD’S LARGEST LANGUAGE FAMILIES

• The largest language families (those with over 25 languages) contain over 6,523 languages, and together they account for close to 95 percent of all world languages (assuming that there are some 7,000 languages in the world).

• The remaining families account for only 5 percent of the world languages.• In addition, there are 53 languages considered unclassified.

Language families

Number of languages Where the languages are spoken

Niger-Congo 1,532

Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Austronesian 1,257

Brunei, Cambodia, China, Cook Islands, East Timor, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Indonesia, Kiribati, Madagascar, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mayotte, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Taiwan, Thailand, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, USA, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, Wallis and Futuna

Trans New Guinea 477 Australia, East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea

Sino-Tibetan 449Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Viet Nam

Indo-European 439

Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Maldives, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, USA, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Venezuela

Afro-Asiatic 374

Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Cameroon, Chad, Cyprus, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen

Australian 264 Australian

Nilo-Saharan 205

Algeria, Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda

Oto-Manguean 177 Mexico

Austro-Asiatic 169

Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda

Tai-Kadai 92 China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam

Dravidian 85 India, Nepal, Pakistan

Creole 82

Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Congo, Curacao, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, French Guiana, Ghana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Macao, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norfolk Island, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Réunion, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, São Tomé e Príncipe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Uganda, United States, Vanuatu

Tupian 76 Bolivia, Brazil, French Guiana, Paraguay, Peru

Language Isolates 75

Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mali, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russian Federation, South Korea, Spain, United States, Venezuela

Mayan 69 Belize, Guatemala, Mexico

Altaic 66

Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Uto-Aztecan 61 El Salvador, Mexico, United States

Arawakan 59Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Honduras, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela

Torricelli 56 Papua New Guinea

Sepik 55 Papua New Guinea

Quechuan - Quechua is also classified as a macrolanguage, i.e., a family of varieties of a single language that are not distinct enough to be considered separate languages.

46 Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru

Na-Dene 46 Canada, United States

Algic 44 Canada, United States

Hmong-Mien 38 China, Laos, Vietnam

Uralic 37 Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Sweden

North Caucasian 34 Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russian Federation

Penutian 33 Canada, United States

Macro-Ge 32 Bolivia, Brazil

Ramu-Lower Sepik 32 Papua New Guinea

Carib 31 Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela

Panoan 28 Bolivia, Brazil, Peru

Khoisan 27 Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania

Salishan 26 Canada, United States

Tucanoan 25 Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador

WHAT MAKES LANGUAGES DIFFERENT? • In looking at difference or similarity of languages, we will see that some languages are more similar than

others. Catalan speech will mostly be understood by Spanish speakers, and it will be easier to learn Slovak if you already speak Russian, for example.

• Let’s have a go at this adjective ‘easy’: the human brain is extremely economical, and it will use the least amount of information and energy to reach the conclusion it needs.

• Thus, if someone speaks to you in a language closely related to your own, your brain will be content to just substitute the strangely formed words of the foreigner with the familiar ones you have in your mental lexicon.

• Strangely – or not so strangely, machine translation is a good indicator of how much two languages are related. Most of today’s machine translation systems work by shoveling together an immense amount of text in both the source and the target language, and derive statistical conclusions of how much a phrase occurs together with its translation in the target text.

• The closer the two languages are you get the translation by rewriting some words at some places, or little more –, the translation will be good. If the translation isn’t good, you know that the differences between the two languages go deeper than the surface-scraping of today’s technology.