Indo-European languages: Encyclopedia II - Indo-European languages - Classification

Indo-European languages - Classification

The various subgroups of the Indo-European family include (in historical order of their first attestation):

• Anatolian languages — earliest attested branch, from the 18th century BC; extinct, most notable was the language of the Hittites.
• Indo-Iranian languages, descending from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian
  • Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, attested from the 2nd millennium BC
  • Iranian languages, attested from roughly 1000 BC, including Avestan and Persian
  • Dardic languages
  • Nuristani languages
• Greek language — fragmentary records in Mycenaean from the 14th century BC; Homer dates to the 8th century BC. See Proto-Greek language, History of the Greek language.
• Italic languages — including Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages, attested from the 1st millennium BC.
• Celtic languages — Gaulish inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Old Irish texts from the 6th century AD, see Proto-Celtic language.
• Germanic languages (including English) — earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century, see Proto-Germanic language.
• Armenian language — attested from the 5th century.
• Tocharian languages — extinct tongues of the Tocharians, extant in two dialects, attested from roughly the 6th century.
• Balto-Slavic languages, believed by many Indo-Europeanists to derive from a common proto-language later than Proto-Indo-European, while others are skeptical and think that Baltic and Slavic are no more closely related than any other two branches of Indo-European.
  • Slavic languages — attested from the 9th century, earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
  • Baltic languages — attested from the 14th century, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European.
• Albanian language — attested from the 15th century (1462); relations with Illyrian, Dacian, or Thracian proposed.

In addition to the classical ten branches listed above, there are several extinct languages, about which very little is known:

• Illyrian languages — possibly related to Messapian or Venetic; relation to Albanian also proposed.
• Venetic language — close to Italic.
• Liburnian language — apparently grouped with Venetic.
• Messapian language — not conclusively deciphered.
• Phrygian language — language of ancient Phrygia, possibly close to Greek, Thracian, or Armenian.
• Paionian language — extinct language once spoken north of Macedon.
• Thracian language — possibly close to Dacian.
• Dacian language — possibly close to Thracian and Albanian.
• Ancient Macedonian language — probably related to Greek, others propose relation to Illyrian, Thracian or Phrygian.
• Ligurian language — possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic

There were no doubt other Indo-European languages which are now lost without a trace. The fragmentary Raetian language cannot be classified with any certainty.

Further subfamilies have been suggested, among them Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Aryan. Neither of these is widely accepted. Indo-Hittite refers to the hypothesis that there is a significant separation between Anatolian and all the remaining groups.

Indo-European languages - Satem and Centum languages

The Indo-European sub-branches are often classified in a Satem and a Centum group. This is based on the varying treatments of the three original velar rows. Satem languages lost the distinction between labiovelar and pure velar sounds, and at the same time assibilated the palatal velars. The centum languages, on the other hand, lost the distinction between palatal velars and pure velars. Thus, geographically, the "eastern" languages are Satem (Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, but not including Tocharian and Anatolian), and the "western" languages are Centum (Germanic, Italic, Celtic). The Satem-Centum isogloss runs right between the Greek (Centum) and Armenian (Satem) languages (thought to be related by a number of scholars), with Greek exhibiting some marginal Satem features. Some scholars think that there may be some languages that classify neither as Satem nor as Centum (Anatolian, Tocharian, and possibly Albanian). It should be noted that the grouping does not imply a claim of monophyly: there never was a "proto-Centum" or a "proto-Satem", but the sound changes spread by areal contact among already distinct post-PIE languages (say, during the 3rd millennium BC).

Indo-European languages - Suggested superfamilies

Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages are part of a hypothetical Nostratic language superfamily, and attempt to relate Indo-European to other language families, such as South Caucasian languages, Altaic languages, Uralic languages, Dravidian languages, Afro-Asiatic languages. This theory is controversial, as is the similar Eurasiatic theory of Joseph Greenberg, and the Proto-Pontic of John Colarusso.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Classification", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki