The Indo-European branch of languages is one of the largest language families in Eurasia . It has spread over the past 5 centuries also in South and North America, Australia and partly in Africa. Indo-European languages until the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries occupied the territory from East Turkestan, located in the east, to Ireland in the west, from India in the south to Scandinavia in the north. This family includes about 140 languages. In total, they are spoken by approximately 2 billion people (2007 estimate). English occupies a leading place among them in the number of speakers.
The importance of Indo-European languages in comparative historical linguistics
In the development of comparative historical linguistics, the role that belongs to the study of Indo-European languages is important. The fact is that their family was one of the first to be identified by scientists with great temporal depth. As a rule, in science, other families were determined, focusing directly or indirectly on the experience gained in the study of Indo-European languages.
Language Comparison Methods
Languages can be compared in various ways. Typology is one of the most common of them. This is a study of the types of linguistic phenomena, as well as the discovery on the basis of this of universal laws that exist at different levels. However, this method is not applicable genetically. In other words, you cannot use it to study languages in terms of their origin. The main role for comparative studies should be played by the concept of kinship, as well as the methodology for establishing it.
Genetic classification of Indo-European languages
It is an analogue of the biological, on the basis of which various groups of species are distinguished. Thanks to her, we can systematize many languages, which number about six thousand. Having revealed the patterns, we can reduce all this set to a relatively small number of language families. The results obtained as a result of genetic classification are invaluable not only for linguistics, but also for a number of other related disciplines. They are especially important for ethnography, since the emergence and development of various languages is closely associated with ethnogenesis (the emergence and development of ethnic groups).
The family tree of Indo-European languages suggests that the differences between them increase over time. This can be expressed in such a way that the distance between them increases, which is measured as the length of the branches or arrows of the tree.
Branches of the Indo-European family
The family tree of Indo-European languages has many branches. It distinguishes both large groups and those consisting of only one language. We list them. It is a modern Greek language, Indo-Iranian languages, Italian (including Latin), Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Albanian, Armenian, Anatolian (Hitto-Luvian) and Tocharic. It also includes a number of extinct species that are known to us from scarce sources, mainly from the few glosses, inscriptions, toponyms and anthroponyms of Byzantine and Greek authors. These are Thracian, Phrygian, Messapian, Illyrian, Ancient Macedonian, Venetian. They can not be reliably attributed to a particular group (branch). Perhaps they should be distinguished into independent groups (branches), making up the genealogical tree of Indo-European languages. Scientists have no consensus on this issue.
Of course, there were, besides the ones listed above, other Indo-European languages. Their fate was different. Some of them became extinct without trace, others left a few traces in the substrate vocabulary and toponomastics. Attempts have been made to restore some Indo-European languages in these meager tracks. The Cimmerian language belongs to the most famous reconstructions of this kind. He allegedly left traces in the Baltic and Slavic. It should also be noted Pelagic, which was spoken by the pre-Greek population of Ancient Greece.
Pidgin
In the course of the expansion of various languages of the Indo-European group over the past centuries, dozens of new ones were formed on the Romance and Germanic basis - pidgin. They are characterized by a radically reduced dictionary (1.5 thousand words or less) and a simplified grammar. Subsequently, some of them creolized, while others became full-fledged both functionally and grammatically. These are bislama, talk-writings, cryos in Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea and the Gambia; Sheshelva in the Seychelles; Mauritius, Haitian and Reunion, etc.
As an example, we give a brief description of the two languages of the Indo-European family. The first of them is Tajik.
Tajik
It belongs to the Indo-European family, to the Indo-Iranian branch and the Iranian group. It is state in Tajikistan, distributed in Central Asia. Together with the Dari language, the literary idiom of the Afghan Tajiks, it belongs to the eastern zone of the dialect of the New Persian continuum. This language can be considered as a variant of Persian (northeastern). Mutual understanding is still possible between those who use the Tajik language and Persian-speaking residents of Iran.
Ossetian
It belongs to the Indo-European languages, to the Indo-Iranian branch, the Iranian group and the eastern subgroup. The Ossetian language is spoken in South and North Ossetia. The total number of speakers is about 450-500 thousand people. It left traces of ancient contacts with Slavic, Turkic and Finno-Ugric. The Ossetian language has 2 dialects: Iron and Digor.
The collapse of the base language
Not later than the fourth millennium BC. e. the collapse of a single Indo-European basic language. This event led to the emergence of many new ones. Figuratively speaking, the genealogical tree of Indo-European languages began to grow from the seed. There is no doubt that the Hittu-Luvian languages separated first. The timing of the allocation of the Tochar branch is the most controversial due to the scarcity of data.
Attempts to combine different branches
The Indo-European language family includes numerous branches. More than once attempts have been made to combine them among themselves. For example, hypotheses were expressed that the Slavic and Baltic languages are especially close. The same was assumed in relation to the Celtic and Italian. To date, the most generally recognized is the union of Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages, as well as Nuristan and Dardic into the Indo-Iranian branch. In some cases, it was even possible to restore verbal formulas characteristic of the Indo-Iranian proto-language.
As you know, the Slavs belong to the Indo-European language family. However, it has not yet been precisely established whether their languages should be separated into a separate branch. The same applies to the Baltic peoples. The Baltic-Slavic unity causes a lot of controversy in such an association as the Indo-European language family. Its peoples cannot be unambiguously attributed to one or another branch.
As for the other hypotheses, they are completely rejected in modern science. Different traits can form the basis of the division of such a large association as the Indo-European language family. The peoples who are the bearers of one or another of its languages are numerous. Therefore, classifying them is not so simple. Various attempts have been made to create a well-balanced system. For example, according to the results of the development of post-lingual Indo-European consonants, all the languages of this group were divided into Kentum and Satem. These associations are named after the reflection of the word "hundred." In the systemic languages, the initial sound of this pra-Indo-European word is reflected in the form of "w", "s", etc. As for the Kentum, it is characterized by "x", "k", etc.
The first comparative
The emergence of comparative historical linguistics proper dates back to the beginning of the 19th century and is associated with the name of Franz Bopp. In his work, he first proved scientifically the kinship of Indo-European languages.
The first comparative nationalities were Germans. These are F. Bopp, J. Zeiss, J. Grimm and others. They first drew attention to the fact that Sanskrit (the ancient Indian language) has a great resemblance to German. They proved that some Iranian, Indian and European languages have a common origin. Then these scientists united them into an “Indo-Germanic” family. After some time, it was found that for the reconstruction of the parent language, Slavic and Baltic are also of exceptional importance. So a new term appeared - "Indo-European languages".
Merit of August Schleicher
August Schleicher (his photo is presented above) in the mid-19th century summarized the achievements of the comparative predecessors. He described in detail each subgroup of the Indo-European family, in particular, its oldest state. The scientist suggested using the principles of reconstruction of the common proto-language. He did not doubt the correctness of his own reconstruction. Schleicher even wrote the text in the pre-Indo-European language, recreated by him. This is the fable "Sheep and Horses."
Comparative historical linguistics was formed as a result of the study of various related languages, as well as the processing of methods for proving their kinship and reconstruction of a certain initial proto-language state. August Schleicher has the merit of sketching the process of their development in the form of a family tree. The Indo-European group of languages appears in the following form: the trunk is a common ancestral language, and the groups of related languages are branches. The family tree has become a visual representation of distant and close kinship. In addition, it indicated that close relatives had a common proto-language (Balto-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Balts and Slavs, German-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Baltic, Slavs and Germans, etc.).
Quentin Atkinson's Contemporary Study
More recently, an international group of biologists and linguists has established that the Indo-European group of languages came from Anatolia (Turkey).
She, from their point of view, is the birthplace of this group. The study was led by Quentin Atkinson, a biologist from the University of Auckland, located in New Zealand. Scientists have applied to the analysis of various Indo-European languages the methods that were used to study the evolution of species. They analyzed the vocabulary of 103 languages. In addition, they examined data on their historical development and geographical distribution. Based on this, the researchers made this conclusion.
Consideration of cognates
How did these scientists study the linguistic groups of the Indo-European family? They examined the cognates. These are root words that have a similar sound and common origin in two or more languages. They are usually words that are less subject to changes in the process of evolution (denoting kinship relations, names of body parts, and also pronouns). Scientists have compared the number of cognates in different languages. Based on this, they determined the degree of their relationship. Thus, cognates were likened to genes, and mutations - differences of cognates.
Use of historical and geographic data
Then scientists resorted to historical data about the time when the divergence of languages was supposedly realized. For example, it is believed that in 270 the languages of the Romance group began to separate from Latin. It was at this time that Emperor Aurelian decided to withdraw Roman colonists from the province of Dacia. In addition, researchers used data on the modern geographical distribution of various languages.
Research results
After combining the information received, an evolutionary tree was created on the basis of the following two hypotheses: the Kurgan and Anatolian ones. Researchers, comparing the resulting two trees, found that the "Anatolian" in terms of statistics is the most likely.
The reaction of colleagues to the results obtained by the Atkinson group was very mixed. Many scholars have noted that comparisons with biological linguistic evolution are unacceptable because they have different mechanisms. However, other scientists found the use of such methods quite justified. However, the group was criticized for not testing the third hypothesis, the Balkan.
Note that to date, the main hypotheses of the origin of Indo-European languages are Anatolian and Kurgan. According to the first, most popular among historians and linguists, their ancestral home is the Black Sea steppes. Other hypotheses, Anatolian and Balkan, suggest that Indo-European languages were distributed from Anatolia (in the first case) or from the Balkan Peninsula (in the second).