University of Panama

Faculty of Humanities

English School

Subject: The Development of the English Language

Essay on Indo-European language family

Name: Eric Contreras

Indo-European Language Family: Origin and Classification

Proto-typical Indo-European language is a hypothetical language which is the

common ancestor of all Indo-European languages. Linguists have accepted it, and they

have tried to reconstruct it. According to Albert Baugh, this language was spoken

somewhere in the area from Lithuania to the steppes of Southern Russia.

Indo-European languages are divided into two groups according to the word hundred

in Latin (centum) and Avestan (Satem).

Satem groups:

Indian: This branch is divided into two languages Vedic Sanskrit, which later

evolved to Classical Sanskrit, and a number of dialects known as Prakrits. From the last

language, Bengali, Marathi, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Romany, Rajasthani, Bihari and

Assamese are descended.

Iranian: This branch evolved into two languages Avestan and Old Persian. Afterwards,

Old Persian became later Middle Persian. Finally, from the last language, Modern

Persian, Kurdish, Pushtu and Beluchi are derived.

Balto-Slavic: It is divided into two subgroups Baltic and Slavic. The Baltic evolved

into three languages: Prussian, Latvian and Lithuanian. The Slavic language evolved

into Old Church Slavic. Afterwards, From Old Church Slavic, Russian, Ukrainian,

Byelorrussian, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, Polish are derived.

Hittite, Armenian and Albanian are independent languages in this group.

Centum Languages

Germanic Languages: It is divided into three subranches which are East Germanic,

North Germanic, and West Germanic. The East Germanic comprehended Gothic,

Burgundian and Vandalic. North Germanic evolved into Old Norse and Old Icelandic

from which Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are derived.

Furthermore, from West Germanic are derived Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, Old

Frisian, Old English and Old High German. So, from Old Saxon, Low German

descended; from Old Franconian are derived Middle Dutch which evolved into Modern

Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans. From Old Frisian, Modern Frisian developed.

Furthermore, Old English, which was developed from Anglic, evolved into Middle

English and afterwards into Modern English. In addition, Modern German was

developed from Old High German.

Italic: It evolved into Latin, Faliscan, and Oscan. Afterwards, from Vulgar Latin

derived the Romance languages which are Spanish, French, Italian, Sardinian,

Romanian, Portuguese, Catalan, Provencal, Galician and Romansch.

Tocharian: It was made up by two extinct languages Tocharian A and Tocharian B.

These languages disappeared because their speakers were absorbed into the Uygur

invasion.

Celtic: It falls into two subranches Insular and Continental. In the Continental

subbranch we have Gallic and in the insular Celtic, we have Brythonic and Goidelic.

From Goidelic, Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx are derived. Finally from Brythonic,

Welsh and Breton are descended.

Hellenic: Modern Greek is descended from Ancient Greek.