An eight thousand year old language family
Indo-European languages are spoken by a lot of people worldwide, from English and Spanish to Armenian, Kurdish, and Russian.
For a couple of hundred years, language experts have been figuring out how these languages are related. They’ve even come up with a family tree, kind of like the ones scientists use to show how animals evolved. This helps them understand how languages change and split apart over time.
The scientists have established two hypotheses.
On one hand, some experts believe the Indo-European people originated in Anatolia, modern-day Turkey, about 9,000 years ago, spreading as farming expanded.
On the other hand, some think the Indo-European languages began near the Black Sea about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, tied to the Kurgan culture known for its burial mounds and horses.
What languages does this huge family tree include? Let’s take a look on some of them.
- Indo-iranian: This branch includes languages spoken in Iran and in the Indian subcontinent. Languages like Hindi, Persian, Pashto…
- Germanic: This one includes languages like English, German, Swedish, Danish etc in northern Europe.
- Slavic: Spoken in Eastern Europe. Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Bulgarian etc.
- Armenian: Armenian is a unique distinct branch in the family.
- Italic: Includes latin and its modern descendants, Italian, Romanian, Spanish French etc.
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