Indo-European languages

The family of Indo-European languages is a collection of several hundred languages, including the majority of languages spoken in Europe and the subcontinent of India, that share a considerable common vocabulary and linguistic features. These shared traits have led many scholars to believe that these languages derive from a common ancestor, usually designated Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European (or PIE). Among the living languages that belong to this group are English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Farsi (Persian), Urdu, and Hindi.

Classification

The family of Indo-European languages is subdivided into a number of subgroups. These are:

1. Indian languages. These languages are now spoken in the modern countries of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The oldest literary texts preserved in any Indo-European language are the Vedas. The oldest texts among them date to around 1500 BC. They are written in an early form of Sanskrit. Among the modern languages belonging to this subgroup are:Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi.
2. Iranian languages. These languages are spoken on the plateau of Iran. There are close affinities between Iranian and Indian languages, suggesting that the peoples who speak dialects of these respective language subgroups have lived in close proximity with each other for a long time. The Iranian languages are divided into an eastern and a western branch. The modern language of Farsi (or Persian) is the main representative of the Iranian languages, and it belongs to the eastern branch. Other Iranian languages are Afghan (or Pushtu) and Beluchi, both spoken in parts of Afghanistan, and Kurdish, which is spoken in an area covering northern Iraq, eastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran.
3. Armenian. Armenian is somewhat isolated within Indo-European, since it does not appear to be linked to any other group by shared linguistic (grammatical) features, though its vocabulary contains numerous items borrowed from Farsi as a result of many centuries of Persian domination. Other lexical items found in Armenian come from Semitic languages, Greek, and Turkish.
4. Hellenic languages. The Greek people (or Hellenes) entered the area now known as Greece around 2000 BC where they displaced numerous other peoples. The early flowering Greek culture produced a number of masterpieces, including the Illiad and the Odyssey, both Homeric poems. The Hellenic or Greek languages are divided into five dialect groups: Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadian-Cyprian, Doric, and Northwest Greek. The most important of these dialects is Attic, the dialect of Ancient Athens, which belongs to the Ionic group. Attic attained supremacy in the fifth century BC through the dominant political and commercial position of Athens. Attic formed the basis of a ''koiné'' or ''lingua franca'', that is, a mixture of several dialects to facilitate communication between different parts of the Greek world and for use as a unified standard in foreign commerce and diplomacy. Modern Greek, or Demotic is ultimately descended from koiné Greek.

References

• Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 3rd edition. London/New York: Routledge, 1980. ISBN 0415050731
• Eduard Prokosch. A Comparative Germanic Grammar. Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America, 1938.