User:Marshallsumter/Languages and language families

Languages are the methods of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.

Universals
Def. a "set of languages which have evolved from a common ancestor" is called a language family.

If "we are going to claim that something is universal, we had better test languages in a sample that includes as many language families as possible."

"In our study, we had data from 31 languages in total, and these derived from 16 distinct language families. This sample represents only a fraction of the world’s languages, but in practice, a sample of this size and kind is sufficient to falsify many possible claimed universals. If Huh? were not universal in the sense we claim, chances are high that at least one of the 31 languages would lack it."

Indo-European migrations
The animated map on the right gives an overall impression; in the details, many things are not exactly right, of the migrations of Indo-Europeans. The first migration into the Danube Valley, for example, did not proceed from the Yamna culture, which started almost a millennium later. But altogether, the idea is to give an general impression of the migrations.

Proto-Indo-European languages
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the linguistic reconstruction of the ancient common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, the most widely spoken language family in the world.

PIE is estimated to have been spoken as a single language from 4500 BC to 2500 BC during the Late [Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, though estimates vary by more than a thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the proto-Indo-European homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Europe. The linguistic reconstruction of PIE has also provided insight into the proto-Indo-European culture and proto-Indo-European religion of its speakers.

No direct evidence of PIE exists – scholars have reconstructed PIE from its present-day descendants using the linguistic comparative method.

Since there is a consistent correspondence of the initial consonants that emerges far too frequently to be coincidental, one can assume that these languages stem from a common parent language.

A common ancestry of Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek has been postulated.

In the 1500s, European visitors to the Indian subcontinent became aware of similarities between Indo-Iranian languages and European languages.

A proposal was published for a proto-language ("Scythian") for the following language families: Germanic, Romance, Hellenic languages (Greek), Baltic, Slavic, Celtic, and Iranian.

The analogy between Sanskrit and European languages has been demonstrated.

Anatolian languages
Under the Kurgan hypothesis, there are two possibilities for how the early Anatolian speakers could have reached Anatolia: from the north via the Caucasus, and from the west, via the Balkans, the latter of which is considered somewhat more likely by Mallory (1989), Steiner (1990) and Anthony (2007). Statistical research by Quentin Atkinson and others using Bayesian inference and glottochronological markers favors an Indo-European origin in Anatolia, though the method's validity and accuracy are subject to debate.

The following classification has proposed:
 * Proto-Anatolian
 * Hittite
 * Palaic
 * Luwic
 * Luwian
 * Lycian
 * Milyan
 * Carian
 * Sidetic
 * Pisidian
 * (?) Lydian

Luwian
Luwiya is the name of the region in which the Luwians lived, as Luwiya is attested, for example, in the Hittite laws.

Several other Anatolian languages – particularly Carian, Lycian, Lydian and Milyan (also known as Lycian B or Lycian II) – are now usually identified as related to Luwian – and as mutually connected more closely than other constituents of the Anatolian branch.

Luwic or Luwian (in the broad sense of the term), is one of three major sub-branches of Anatolian, alongside Hittite and Palaic.

Luwian was among the languages spoken during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC by groups in central and western Anatolia and northern Syria. Beginning in the 14th century BC, Luwian-speakers came to constitute the majority in the Hittite capital Hattusa. It appears that by the time of the collapse of the Hittite Empire ca. 1180 BC, the Hittite king and royal family were fully bilingual in Luwian, and long after the extinction of the Hittite language, Luwian continued to be spoken in the Neo-Hittite states of Syria, such as Milid and Carchemish, as well as in the central Anatolian kingdom of Tabal that flourished in the 8th century BC.

The earliest Indo-Europeans in northwest Anatolia were the horse-riders who came to this region from the north and founded Demircihöyük (Eskisehir Province) in Phrygia c. 3000 BC, were allegedly ancestors of the Luwians who inhabited Troy II, and spread widely in the Anatolian peninsula.

"Türkmen-Karahöyük [is] a large Bronze and Iron Age mounded settlement [see second image down on the right] occupied between about 3,500 and 100 BC."

"A local farmer [...] had found a big stone [in the first image on the right] with strange inscriptions while dredging a nearby irrigation canal the previous winter."

"My colleague Michele Massa and I rushed straight there, and we could see it still sticking out of the water, so we jumped right down into the canal up to our waists wading around."

"Right away it was clear it was ancient, and we recognized the script it was written in: Luwian, the language used in the Bronze and Iron ages in the area."

"The survey team immediately identified a special hieroglyphic marking that symbolised the message came from a king."

"The inscription boasted of defeating Phrygia, the kingdom ruled by King Midas, famous from the mythical story where he developed a golden touch."

The "city covered 300 acres, making it one of the largest in Bronze and Iron Age Turkey."

"We had no idea about this kingdom. In a flash, we had profound new information on the Iron Age Middle East."

"Inside this mound are going to be palaces, monuments, houses. This was a marvelous, incredibly lucky find but it’s just the beginning."

Major geographical language families
In the following, each "bulleted" item is a known language family. The geographic headings over them are meant solely as a tool for grouping families into collections more comprehensible than an unstructured list of the dozen or two of independent families. Geographic relationship is convenient for that purpose, but these headings are not a suggestion of any "super-families" phylogenetically relating the families named.

Afro-Asiatic languages
Afroasiatic (Afro-Asiatic), also known as Afrasian and traditionally as Hamito-Semitic (Chamito-Semitic) or Semito-Hamitic, is a large language family of about 300 languages and dialects.

Niger-Congo languages
The Niger–Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers and number of distinct languages. It is generally considered to be the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, ahead of Austronesian, although this is complicated by the ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language; the number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by Ethnologue is 1,540.

Families of Europe, and North Asia, West Asia, and South Asia

 * Indo-European languages
 * Dravidian languages (some include Dravidian languages in a larger Elamo-Dravidian language family.)
 * Caucasian languages (generally thought to be two separate families, North Caucasian and South Caucasian)
 * Altaic languages (disputed)
 * Uralic languages
 * Hurro-Urartian languages (extinct)
 * Yukaghir languages (Some include Yukaghir in the Uralic family.)
 * Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
 * Yenisei-Ostyak languages
 * Andamanese languages

Families of East Asia and Southeast Asia and the Pacific

 * Austroasiatic languages
 * Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) languages
 * Sino-Tibetan languages (some include Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien in the Sino-Tibetan family)
 * Tai-Kadai languages
 * Hmong-Mien languages
 * Australian Aboriginal languages (multiple families)
 * Papuan languages (multiple families)

Families of the Americas

 * Alacalufan languages (South America) (2)
 * Algic languages (including Algonquian) (North America)
 * Arauan languages (South America) (8)
 * Araucanian languages (South America) (2)
 * Arawakan languages (South America, Caribbean) (60)
 * Arutani-Sape languages (South America) (2)
 * Aymaran languages (South America) (3)
 * Barbacoan languages (South America) (7)
 * Caddoan languages (North America)
 * Cahuapanan languages (South America) (2)
 * Carib languages (South America) (29)
 * Chapacura-Wanham languages (South America) (5)
 * Chibchan languages (Central America, South America) (22)
 * Choco languages (South America) (10)
 * Chon languages (South America) (2)
 * Chumash languages (North America) (7)
 * Harakmbet languages (South America) (2)
 * Hokan languages (North America)
 * Huavean languages (North America)
 * Inuit-Aleut languages (North America)
 * Iroquoian languages (North America)
 * Jivaroan languages (South America) (4)
 * Katukinan languages (South America) (3)
 * Keres languages (North America) (2)
 * Kiowa-Tanoan languages (North America) (6)
 * Lule-Vilela languages (South America) (1)
 * Macro-Ge languages (South America) (32)
 * Maku languages (South America) (6)
 * Mascoian languages (South America) (5)
 * Mataco-Guaicuru languages (South America) (11)
 * Mayan languages (North America), (Central America)
 * Misumalpan languages (Central America)
 * Mixe-Zoque languages (North America, Central America)
 * Mosetenan languages (South America) (1)
 * Mura languages (South America) (1)
 * Muskogean languages (North America)
 * Na-Dene languages (Athabascan) (North America)
 * Nambiquaran languages (South America) (5)
 * Oto-Manguean languages (Central America)
 * Paezan languages (South America) (1)
 * Panoan languages (South America) (30)
 * Penutian languages (North America)
 * Peba-Yaguan languages (South America) (2)
 * Quechuan languages (South America) (46)
 * Salishan languages (North America)
 * Salivan languages (South America) (2)
 * Siouan languages (North America)
 * Tacanan languages (South America) (6)
 * Tucanoan languages (South America) (25)
 * Tupi languages (South America) (70)
 * Uru-Chipaya languages (South America) (2)
 * Uto-Aztecan languages (North America)
 * Witotoan languages (South America) (6)
 * Yanomam languages (South America) (4)
 * Zamucoan languages (South America) (2)
 * Zaparoan languages (South America) (7)

Proposed Language Super-Families

 * Austric
 * Indo-Pacific
 * Ural-Altaic
 * Pontic
 * Ibero-Caucasian
 * Alarodian
 * Amerind
 * Macro-Siouan
 * Kongo-Saharan
 * Super-Families that would include Indo-European
 * Eurasiatic
 * Nostratic
 * Proto-World

Creoles, Pidgins, and Trade languages

 * Bislamic languages
 * Bislama
 * Broken
 * Pijin
 * Tok Pisin
 * Chabacano - a Spanish creole spoken in southwestern part of Philippines.
 * Chinook Jargon
 * Hawaiian Creole English
 * Haitian creole
 * Hiri Motu
 * Lingua franca
 * Portuguese Creole languages
 * Sango

Isolate languages
Def. "[a] natural language with no proven relationship with another living language" is called a language isolate.

/Isolate languages/ share no apparent traits with any known language family.
 * /Basque/ (The language of the Basques, people of unknown origin inhabiting the western Pyrenees and the Bay of Biscay in France and Spain.)
 * /Burushaski/
 * /Ainu/
 * /Vascan/

Sign languages

 * Department of Deaf studies
 * American Sign Language (ASL)
 * Auslan, used in Australia
 * British Sign Language (BSL)
 * Dutch Sign Language (NGT)
 * Quebec Sign Language (LSQ)
 * French Sign Language (LSF)
 * Flemish Sign Language "Vlaamse Gebarentaal" (VGT)
 * German Sign Language "Deutsche Gebärdensprache" (DGS)
 * Swiss-German Sign Language "Deutschschweizer Gebärdensprache" (DSGS)
 * Irish Sign Language (ISL)
 * Nicaraguan Sign Language (LSN)
 * Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL)

Other Natural Languages of Special Interest

 * Endangered languages
 * Extinct languages

Artificial Languages
Besides the above languages that have arisen spontaneously out of the capability for vocal communication, there are also languages that share many of their important properties.
 * Esperanto
 * constructed spoken languages