2. Language Families
• A language family is a group of languages related
through descent from a common ancestor, called the
proto-language of that family.
• Philology - The study of language history and change
• There are an estimated 5,000 to 8,000, living human
languages. A living language is simply one that is
used as the primary form of communication of a
group of people. There are also many dead and
extinct languages, as well as some that are still
insufficiently studied to be classified
• There are around 147 language families
3. Sir William Jones in the 18th century established a
relationship between Sanskrit and the European
languages Greek and Latin. He is generally regarded as
father of Historical Linguistics
Sanskrit Latin Ancient Greek
pitar pater pate-r (“father”)
bhrātar frāter phrāter (“brother”)
Hindi English Russian
dvaar door dver
dho two dva
4. Proto-Indo-European language
• Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the linguistic
reconstruction of the common ancestor of the
Indo-European languages.
• There are about 445 living Indo-European (IE)
languages, with Spanish, English, Hindi,
Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German,
French and Marathi being the ten Indo-
European languages with the most native
speakers in descending order.
5. The Germanic Branch
• Germanic languages - branch of the Indo-
European language family. Scholars often divide
the Germanic languages into three groups:
• West Germanic - English, German, and
Netherlandic (Dutch);
• North Germanic
Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Norwegian etc.
• East Germanic - now extinct
6.
7. • Languages with the most number of native
speakers
Mandarin Chinese (over 1 billion)
Spanish (over 400 million)
English (over 330 million)
• Diachronic Study
The study of the evolution and development of
language through history.
• Synchronic study
The study of the differences within one language in
different places and among different groups at the
same time
