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June 16, 2015. Animated map shows how Indo-European languages may have evolved. Watch on. What do Spanish, Hindi and English all have in common? They all descended from the same mother tongue:...
By contrast, Indo-European groups of Europe (the Centum, Balto-Slavic, and Albanian groups) migrated throughout most of Europe from the Pontic steppe. They are assumed to have developed in situ through admixture of earlier Mesolithic and Neolithic populations with Bronze Age, proto-Indo-Europeans .
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Feb 12, 2024 · Two possible origins of Indo-European languages. Most historical linguists favor the origin illustrated in the top map, where the languages originated in the steppes about 6,000 years ago. A minority favor an origin among farmers about 9,000 years ago.
- Overview
- People of Europe
- Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages
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A scanty population of now-extinct hominin species (see Hominidae) lived in Europe before modern humans appeared some 45,000–43,000 years ago. Throughout the prehistoric period the continent experienced continual waves of immigration from Asia. In the modern period, especially since the mid-20th century, large numbers of people have immigrated from...
A scanty population of now-extinct hominin species (see Hominidae) lived in Europe before modern humans appeared some 45,000–43,000 years ago. Throughout the prehistoric period the continent experienced continual waves of immigration from Asia. In the modern period, especially since the mid-20th century, large numbers of people have immigrated from...
Within the complex of European languages, three major divisions stand out: Romance, Germanic, and Slavic. All three are derived from a parent Indo-European language of the early migrants to Europe from southwestern Asia.
The Romance languages dominate western and Mediterranean Europe and include French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian, plus such lesser-known languages as Occitan (Provençal) in southern France, Catalan in northeastern Spain and Andorra, and Romansh in southern Switzerland. All are derived from the Latin language of the Roman Empire.
The Germanic languages are found in central, northern, and northwestern Europe. They are derived from a common tribal language that originated in southern Scandinavia, and they include German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic, as well as the minor Germanic tongue of Frisian in the northern Netherlands and northwestern Germany. English is a Germanic language, but about half its vocabulary has Romance origins.
The Slavic languages are characteristic of eastern and southeastern Europe and of Russia. These languages are usually divided into three branches: West, East, and South. Among the West Slavic languages are Polish, Czech and Slovak, Upper and Lower Sorbian of eastern Germany, and the Kashubian language of northern Poland. The East Slavic languages are Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. The South Slavic languages include Slovene, Serbo-Croatian (known as Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian), Macedonian, and Bulgarian.
In addition to the three major divisions of the Indo-European languages, three minor groups are also noteworthy. Modern Greek is the mother tongue of Greece and of the Greeks in Cyprus, as well as the people of other eastern Mediterranean islands. Older forms of the language were once widespread along the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean and in southern peninsular Italy and Sicily. The Baltic language family includes modern Latvian and Lithuanian. The Old Prussian language also belonged to the Baltic group but was supplanted by German through conquest and immigration. Europe’s Roma speak the distinctive Romany language, which has its origins in the Indic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Two other Indo-European language divisions were formerly widespread but now are spoken only by a few groups. Celtic languages at one time dominated central and western Europe from a core in the German Rhineland. Cultural pressures from adjacent Germanic- and Romance-speaking civilizations eliminated the Celtic culture area, save for a few remnants in the British Isles and Brittany, in northwestern France; surviving Celtic languages include Cornish, Welsh, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx, and Breton. The Thraco-Illyrian branch of the Indo-European languages was formerly spoken throughout the Balkan Peninsula north of Greece. It survives solely in the Albanian language.
Sep 22, 2023 · There are over 750 million people in Europe, if we assume Europe goes up to the Ural mountains, and down to Georgia, excluding the Asian part of Turkey. About 94% of Europeans speak languages from the enormous “Indo-European” (IE) language family.
The Romani, also spelled Romany or Rromani ( / ˈroʊməni / ROH-mə-nee or / ˈrɒməni / ROM-ə-nee) and colloquially known as the Roma ( sg.: Rom ), are an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin [71] [72] [73] who traditionally lived a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Romani originated in the Indian ...
The genetic history of Europe includes information around the formation, ethnogenesis, and other DNA-specific information about populations indigenous, or living in Europe. The most significant recent dispersal of modern humans from Africa gave rise to an undifferentiated " non-African " lineage by some 70–50 ka (70-50,000 years ago).
