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While the Indo-European family reaches 45.7% of the world and spans almost every continent, the Sino-Tibetan is somewhat of a close second at 21.1%, and concentrating only in Southeast Asia and China. The last third of the world can be classified into around 100 other language families.
indo-european family
indo-european family
The main branches of the Indo-European family include Germanic, Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, and Romance languages which form even smaller sub-groups.
germanic branch
germanic branch
Geographic elevation plays a big role in how the Germanic languages have diffused. The Germanic Branch is first divided into West and North.
The west consists of High Germanic and Low Germanic because of the different elevations within present-day Germany. Low Germanic languages include Dutch, English, and Flemish - which is spoken in Belgium. Other dialects of German make up the High section.
The Northern Germanic branch covers Scandinavia and includes Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.
indo-iranian branch
indo-iranian branch
Out of all Indo-European languages, the Indo-Iranian branch is the most populous. The branch includes over 100 different languages and is split into two groups: Indic (Eastern) and Iranian (Western).
The Indic derives its name from India where over 1 billion people reside and speak within the branch as well as the neighboring countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh. The official language of India is Hindi which is an Indo-European language. Hindi was made the national language in the nineteenth century after British encouragement. Consequently, English- the language of the British colonial rules- has been preserved as a secondary language.
The Iranian group is evidently made up of speakers from Iran and the neighboring central Asia countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. The major languages include Persian, Pashto, and Kurdish.
balto-slavic branch
balto-slavic branch
Like others, the Balto-Slavic branch is divided into East Slavic and Baltic; and West and South Slavic. Before the 700s AD migration of Slavs from Asia to Europe, Slavic was one language. Over time, isolates formed and the languages broke off into sub-dialects.
East Slavic and Baltics majority come from 80% of Russians speaking… Russian! Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. During the rise of the Soviet Union during World War II, officials forced speakers of any and every other language to learn Russian to increase the fluidity of understanding and unity. Even post-Soviet reign, Russian has a stronghold over most of Russia. The next two most common Slavic languages are Ukrainian and Belarusan, the official languages of Ukraine and Belarus, respectively.
The most commonly spoken West Slavic language is Polish, followed by Czech and Slovak (which both tend to have extremely similar vocabulary). Pre 1993, the Communist era promoted the use of both the Czech and Slovak languages throughout what was Czechoslovakia. Four years after the fall of communism, Slovakia split from the Czech Republic and took their language with them.
While Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Croatia were all part of Yugoslavia, the majority language was called Serbo-Croatian. Since Balkanization, differences have crept into the language as each individual country wants to appear independent.
romance branch
romance branch
The Romance languages have been evolving from early forms of Latin over 2,000 years ago. The four most widely spoken Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French. Mountain ranges, as well as separating these languages in Eastern Europe also serve as a rough international border between the four corresponding countries of Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France. Multiple other Romance languages are spoken throughout Europe as well as a mix of the most occurring.
sino-tibetan family
sino-tibetan family
The Sino-Tibetan family encompasses languages spoken in the People's Republic of China, India, Burma, and Nepal. The Sino - Tibetan language family is the second most spoken in the world. In this particular tree, the two major branches are the Sinitic and the Tibeto-Berman.
sinitic branch
sinitic branch
The Sinitic branch consists mainly of the different languages and dialects of China. Because of this, the majority of people that use languages in the Sinitic language are in China. However, these languages are also spoken in SouthEast Asia, Taiwan, and other locations where Chinese immigrants have relocated to.
Mandarin Chinese is the 2nd most spoken language in the world and has the most amount of native speakers compared to any other language. In China, over three-fourths of the population speak Mandarin. The language is the official language of both China and Taiwan, along with being one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
Cantonese, also known as Yue, is another language in the Sinitic branch. Cantonese had around 64 million speakers according to UCLA in 1992. It originated from what is today Guangzhou. Today, it is spoken primarily in the Guangdong province in China. It was the primary language of Hong Kong until the handover of the city to China in 1997.
tibeto-burman branch
tibeto-burman branch
The Tibeto-Burman consists of around 56 million speakers and has the most number of individual languages in a branch. Some of the biggest languages in this branch include Burmese, Tibetan, and Bai. The small ratio of languages spoken compared to the population is impressively smaller than many other large nations and stands as a symbol of strength and unity. Classification of the subgroups in the branch is widely debated, however, we will cover 2 of the larger subgroups.
The Qiangic language group is one of the largest subgroups in the Tibeto-Burman branch. The languages in this group are mainly spoken in southwest China and Tibet. Because of this, the languages are often heavily influenced by Chinese. The biggest languages in this group include Qiang, Ersu, and Pumi.
The Lolo-Burmese is another language group in the Tibeto-Burman branch. It is divided into the Burmish and Loloish languages. The Burmish languages consist of Burmese and a few other minor languages located in Myanmar. The Lolish languages, also known as Yi, are closely related to the Burmish languages. The group consists of Nosu and other languages found as south as Thailand and Laos.
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