Language Families, Common Ancestry, Etymology

Contrastive Linguistics 2

0. Nadene (Apache, Navajo) 1. Eskimo-Aleut (Eskimo, Aleut) 2. Algonquian-Wakashan, Hokan Siouan, Penutian etc. 3. Indo-European 4. Uralic (incl. Finno-Ugric, Samoyed) 5. Caucasian (Chechen, Georgian) 6. Hamito-Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac - surviving as a liturgical language, Aramaic) 7. Dravidian (Kannada, Tamil) 8. Sino-Tibetan (Chinese, Burmese, Thai, Tibetan) 9. Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian) and Austroasiatic

10. Nilo-Saharan (Masai) 11. Niger-Kordofanian (Swahili, Yoruba, Zulu) 12. Khoisan (Click languages) (Hatsa, Khoikhoi) 13. Australian Aboriginal 14. Korean and Japanese 15. Altaic (Turkish, Mongol, Kazakh, Azeri) 16. Paleosiberian

Branch
Indo-Iranian

Indo-European Family
Examples

Baltic Celtic Hellenic Illyric Germanic Romance Slavic Thracian

Kurdish, Farsi (Persian), Pashtu, Hindi (Urdu), Bengali, and of course, Sanskrit, which is now extinct; Latvian, Lithuanian; Irish, Scots, Welsh, Manx, Breton; Greek Albanian English, German, Danish, Dutch (Flemish), Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faeroese; Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Rumanian, Rhaetian, Catalan, Sardinian; Russian, Polish, Czech, Ukranian, Slovak, Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian; Armenian, Thracian (extinct, spoken by Spartacus) Finno-Ugric Family Finnish, Estonian, Lapp, Karielian; Hungarian, Ostyak, Vogul; Samoyed.
Konrad Szczesniak
Silesian University

Navajo code talkers served in all military operations conducted by the U.S. in the Pacific after 1942 during World War II. They helped transmit messages by telephone and radio in their native language -- which proved to be an excellent code never broken by the Japanese. Their messages were first translated from English into Navajo, and at the other end of the line, back to English again. Navajo is a language with no alphabet; it has complicated tonal qualities, and it is only spoken in the American Southwest.

Branch
Finnic Ugric
also: Samoyedic

Examples

Language Families, Common Ancestry, Etymology

Contrastive Linguistics 2

It all started from: Sir William Jones (174694) - father of comparative philology. Jones was the first to suggest that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin had the same source.

Matching related languages wel - Indo-European root

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either: yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all without believing them to have sprung from some common source which perhaps no longer exists...

Polish wola, German Wille, English well (according to one's will), will , wealth, voluntary, benevolent,

raven
hrfn Czech havran Polish gawron Croatian gavran Welsh cigfran Danish ravn Icelandic hrafn
Old English

bhergIndo-European root

birch Birke Czech bza Polish brzoza Icelandic bjrk Danish birk
English German

The fact that Indo-European languages are related is corroborated by the similarities between vast groups of vocabulary:

numerals:

3
three German drei Czech ti Polish trzy Sanskrit tryas Danish tre Icelandic rr
English

names of places:

names of colors:

pelIndo-European root

ghelIndo-European root

plane, field Feld Polish pole, Polska Portuguese plancie, plano

English German

gold, yellow zielony, zoty Sanskrit hari (tawny yellow)

English English Russian zola (ashes) Greek

khlros (green)

common verbs:
Sanskrit Polish

pedIndo-European root

names of family relations:

mterIndo-European root

patati pada Croatian padati

mater Polish matka English mother German Mutter Spanish madre

Sanskrit

On the basis of vocabulary similarities (in words for hills, streams, animals, and plants) shared by Indo-European languages, linguists speculate on the original motherland of Proto-Indo-Europeans which was most probably Ukraine or Turkey. The original tribe of Indo-Europeans expanded across the plains of Europe and Asia around 8,000 years ago.

Konrad Szczesniak
Silesian University

Language Families, Common Ancestry, Etymology

Contrastive Linguistics 2

Nostratic macro-family possible connection between Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic families. Originally the idea to connect the three families appeared in the 1960's in the Soviet Union. It was suggested by Moscovite scholars A. Dolgopolsky, and V. Illich-Svitych. Sound similarities: 'm' in words for 'I' (me in English, words for 'you' (te in Hungarian, Words for 'no' (nem in Hungarian, Tamil Hungarian Latin Arabic Finnish Yupik Tfaltik Dravidian Uralic Indo-European Semitic Uralic Eskimo-Aleut Penutian

mnie in

Polish,

minun

in Finnish etc. ), 't' in

teie in Estonian, ty in Polish, tu in French, Spanish etc. ) nej in Danish and Swedish, etc. )
"to chew" "breast" "to milk" "to suck on the breast" "milk" "to suck" "to swallow"

melku
mell mulgre mlj maito

Proto-world?

melug milq

Sound changes
A

bh

in PIE becomes

in Proto Germanic. A

in PIE becomes

in

Proto Germanic, and a p becomes f. A dh in PIE becomes d in Proto Germanic, and so on.

*p, *t, *k change into Proto-Germanic *f, * (as thin), *h or *x (as in loch) per- (Indo-European root) fjord, fare, wayfarer, ferry, fern, ford teue- (Indo-European root) thigh, thousand, thimble, thumb
PIE sounds An exception to the above rules was captured by Verner's law - Proto-Germanic non-initial voiceless fricatives (as in pitar - father) in voiced environments became voiced (father) when the previous syllable was unstressed in PIE.

in

Learning vocabulary based on Latin roots

Learning vocabulary is very effective in the case of words derived from Latin roots, when the learner realizes the common semantic thread linking related words. The following words are derived from the Latin caedere for "to cut" and share a meaning element that has to do with cutting:

incise / incision chisel

Latin

incisive concise

excise / excision

excise tax

circumcision

rapere for "to seize": ravine rapt / rapture rapacious surreptitious

rape

rapine

ravish

Konrad Szczesniak
Silesian University