Do you know what the world’s major language families are?

By Phoebe Harrison

The study of our languages’ origins and histories is one that has been ongoing for hundreds of years, though in recent times modern anthropological evidence and new ways of thinking have made it easier to define and categorise individual languages. Part of this categorisation is understanding to which language ‘family’ a specific tongue belongs – though there are an estimated 142 different families, the most widely spoken languages (in terms of geographical reach and speakers) belong to six ‘main’ families – though, staggeringly, these six groups only account for two thirds of the world’s languages. These are the major language families, as of 2021.

 

Indo-European

With over 445 ‘members’ and 3.29 billion speakers worldwide, the Indo-European language family is one of the most prominent. Indo-European refers to the languages spoken across most of Europe together with those spoken in parts of India and the Iranian plateau. What ‘relates’ these different languages is the common ancestor language known by linguists as Proto-Indo-European (‘PIE’). The accepted hypothesis is that PIE existed as a single language between 4000 and 2500 BC, with its speakers theorized to have been located mostly around the Pontic-Caspian steppe, gradually becoming isolated from each other through Indo-European migration, going on to form their own separate individual language ‘branches’ of the family tree. There are ten main branches of Indo European:

• Anatolian – Now extinct, Anatolian languages were spoken across Turkey and Syria between 1000 and 2000BC. The best-known member of this group is Hittite (the language of the empire of the same name), a language that has been important to many linguistic scholars in the development of Indo-European studies.
• Indo–Iranian – Comprising of two main ‘sub-branches’ – Indo-Aryan and Iranian – ‘Indo-Iranian’ refers to the languages spoken across southwestern and southern Asia by around 1 billion people. The most well-known languages in this group are Persian (Farsi and Dari), Pashto, Kurdish, Hindi, and Bengali.
• Greek – Despite many changes in dialect, Greek is fairly unique as it has existed as a single language throughout history, spoken in Greece from around 1600BC onwards, though probably even earlier.
• Italic – The most significant language of the Italic branch is Latin, originally the speech of Ancient Rome and the father of the Romance languages; namely, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French, amongst others.
• Germanic – Italic’s northern ‘neighbours’, the Germanic languages originated amongst the Germanic tribes populating southern Scandinavia and Northern Germany around 1000 BC. Tribal migration across Europe would eventually spawn German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and (of course), English.
• Armenian – Much like Greek, Armenian has existed as one single language. The earliest speakers of Armenian resided in what is now modern-day Armenia and Turkey as early as 600 BC.
• Albanian – Though its origins and place in the Indo-European family are slightly unclear, Albanian (the language of modern-day Albania) is thought to be a continuation of a lesser-known language of the Balkan Peninsula. Albanian as we know it became known around the 15^th
• Tocharian – Also now extinct, the Tocharian languages were spoken in north-western China during the 1^st millennium BC. Existing as an eastern and western dialect, scholars have studied the few surviving documents in the language and linked it to Celtic and Italic languages.
• Celtic – Celtic languages were widely spoken across Europe by numerous tribes prior to the ‘Common Era’ and Christianisation of Europe. Most of our knowledge of the Celtic branch comes from its surviving members, the insular languages of Irish and Welsh.
• Balto-Slavic – Last but not least, the grouping of ‘Baltic’ and ‘Slavic’ languages together is controversial, yet the similarities between the two groups ultimately outweigh the differences. Baltic and Slavic tribes inhabited large swathes of Eastern Europe from the beginning of the Common Era, and following Slavic migration in the fifth century, languages like Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Bulgarian, the ‘Serbo-Croatian’ languages, Czech, Lithuanian, Latvian, Slovenian, and Macedonian appeared.

 

Sino-Tibetan

The other ‘dominant’ language family of the main six in terms of speakers, ‘Sino-Tibetan’ comprises over 400 languages, spoken across South and East Asia, with approximately 1.4 billion speakers in total. Because of its distribution over such a wide area, the location of Sino-Tibetan’s ‘homeland’ is disputed, though there several theories on the subject. The most widely accepted is that the family originated amongst the Yangshao culture and its peoples who resided near the Yellow River basin around 7000BC in what is modern-day China. As is always the case, later migration caused the ancestor language to split into different branches. These modern-day branches are:

• Sinitic – The Sinitic language branch of the Sino-Tibetan family refers to the languages spoken in China and the island of Taiwan, as well as in certain other areas of Southeast Asia. The Sinitic branch can be divided into several main languages, the most prominent being Mandarin, Wu, Xiang, and Yue (also known as Cantonese).
• Tibeto-Burman – The Tibeto-Burman branch languages are those spoken primarily in Tibet, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), across the Himalayas and the regions of Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim, with other speakers dispersed across India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The main Tibeto-Burman languages are Burmese, Tibetan, and Dzongkha.

 

Afro-Asiatic

Also known as Afrasian or Hamito-Semitic, Afro-Asiatic is a language family with around 300 members and 583 million speakers. Languages in this family are spoken in northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, with additional speakers scattered across Western Asia. The origins of Afro-Asiatic are generally presumed to date back to 15,000-10,000 BC, making it one of the more ancient language families. Though there is much debate over the specific geographical origins of the family, it has been hypothesised to have been spoken by those living around the Sahara in around 5000BC, with gradual migration causing the originator language to split into several branches. These branches are:

• Semitic – The Semitic languages are spoken across North Africa and Southwest Asia. The most prominent languages in this branch are Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Tigrinya.
• Berber – Also known as the Amazigh languages, Berber is spoken by the people of the same name who are considered to be the indigenous peoples of North Africa, with large populations in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia. The main Berber languages are Tachelit, Tamazight, Kabyle, Tarifit, and Tachawit.
• Egyptian – Now extinct (yet heavily documented), Egyptian was spoken by the peoples of Ancient Egypt, with the country’s modern population speaking mostly Arabic. It is one of the oldest recorded languages.
• Cushitic – Languages belonging to the Cushitic family are spoken primarily within the Horn of Africa. In terms of speakers, the largest Cushitic languages are Oromo, Somali, Beja, Sidamo, and Afar.
• Omotic – Omotic languages are those spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, divided into North and South Omotic. Some of the languages within this subdivision are Aari, Hamer-Banna, Karo, and Dime.
• Chadic – The languages known as ‘Chadic’ are spoken across the Sahel region of Africa (the area stretching from the northern Sahara to the Sudanian savannah), predominately in Niger, Nigeria, Chad, the Central African Republic, and parts of Cameroon. This branch includes Hausa, Ngas, and Kamwe.

 

 

Niger-Congo

Staying in Africa, the Niger-Congo language family comprises over 1,535 languages spoken by 571 million people, primarily across the sub-Saharan region of the continent. Approximately 85% of the African population (around 600 million people) are thought to speak a language belonging to the Niger-Congo family. Linguists speculate that the Niger-Congo languages originate from the area where the Niger and Benue rivers convene. Following Bantu expansion across West and Central Africa, Niger-Congo, like the other language families, began to split into smaller language branches. Some of the principal branches are:

 

• Mande – Mande languages are those spoken in West Africa by the Mandé people, and include Mandinka, Maninka, Soninke, Bambara, and Kepelle.
• Kordofanian – Referring to the languages spoken in the Nuba mountains of the Kurdufan, Sudan, the Kordofanian languages are Heiban, Talodi, Rashad, and Katla.
• Atlantic – Also known as ‘West Atlantic’, members of this language branch are spoken along the Atlantic Coast of Africa, and include languages such as Fula, Wolof, and Diola.
• Ijoid – The smallest branch of the Niger-Congo family, Ijoid languages can be found across the Niger river delta region of Nigeria. They include Kalabari, Okrika, and Ibani
• Kru – Spoken across the forest regions of the Ivory Coast and in southern Liberia, the Kru languages include Kuwaa and Grebo.
• Gur – Spoken by around 20 million people across the savanna regions of Africa, the Gur languages include Moore, Gurma, Gurenne, and Dagbani.
• Adamawa-Ubangi – Another branch of the ‘savanna’ languages, this language branch includes Mumuye and Tupuri.
• Kwa – Spoken across the Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Togo, the Kwa languages include Ga–Dangme and Na-Togo
• Benue-Congo – The largest branch of the Niger-Congo language family, the Benue-Congo languages cover most of Sub-Saharan Africa and have over 500 million speakers. The branch includes Nupe, Gbagyi, Ebira, Zula, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Igbo.

 

Austronesian

 Austronesian is a language family whose members are spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). There are over 1,225 languages within this family , spread across approximately 327 million speakers. The Urheimat (place of origin) of the Austronesian family is thought to be the main island of Taiwan, known also as ‘Formosa’, with general migration outwards happening around 6,000 years ago, causing Proto-Austronesian to divide into smaller branches. The main branches in the Austronesian language family are:

• Malayo-Polynesian – separated into a western and eastern branch, the ‘Malayo- Polynesian’ languages are those spoken predominately across the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean. They include Javanese, Malay, Tagalog, Samoan, and Hawaiian.
• Formosan – The Formosan languages refer to those spoken by the indigenous people of Taiwan. Some of these languages include Amis, Atayal, and Bunun.

 

Trans-New Guinea

 

The smallest of the major language families in terms of speakers, the Trans-New Guinea family is made up of the languages spoken in New Guinea and its neighbouring islands, with around 4 million speakers of 477 languages. Though its status and classification are still somewhat contested, there are some generally widely-agreed upon hypotheses regarding the family and its origins. One general theory is that Proto-Trans New Guinea originated in the northern parts of Papua New Guinea and spread as a result of migration around 4,000 years ago. Most TNG languages are only spoken by a few thousand people, with only seven of these spoken by over 10,000. The main languages in the TNG family (in terms of speakers) are Melpa, Kuman, Enga, Huli, Western Dani, Makasae, and Ekari.

 

Concluding Thoughts

Though they may seem to cover most of the known world, the six main language families in this list only scratch the surface of our linguistic geography and history, with over 136 more families out there. In short, as a species we are more linguistically diverse than most people will ever realise.

If you or someone you know requires translation or interpretation services in any language, visit us here at Crystal Clear Translation for a quote.