Useless-Knowledge.com
June 15 2005

A Note On The Classification Of Indo-European Languages

By Thomas Keyes
June 15, 2005

Since the early 20th century it has been recognized that most of the
languages of Europe as well as numerous languages of Iran,
Afghanistan and India constitute a single superfamily, called the
Indo-European languages. The only national languages of Europe not
included are Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian; Basque is also
excluded. Vying with the Indo-European languages in India are the
Dravidian languages, an unrelated group numbering Tamil, Telugu,
Malayalam and others.

The Indo-European languages consist of two major subgroups, called
Centum and Satem, each of which is further subdivided into smaller
families of languages. In the traditional classification, which may
have undergone some minor refinements in the most modern schemes,
Centum languages include Italic (or Romance), Germanic, Celtic and
Hellenic languages. Satem languages divide into Balto-Slavic,
Indo-Iranian, Thraco-Illyrian and Thraco-Phrygian languages.

As for the Centum group, today’s basic Italic languages are Spanish,
French, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian-Moldavian. Germanic
languages are German, English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and
Icelandic. Celtic languages are Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Manx and
Breton. And the Hellenic language is Greek.

As for Satem, Baltic languages are Latvian and Lithuanian, while
Slavic languages are Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Polish, Czech,
Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian and Macedonian. Indic
languages include Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati,
Oriya, Sindhi, Sinhala, Nepali and others. Iranian languages are
Persian (Farsi), Pashtu, Dari, Kurdish and others. The
Thraco-Illyrian language is Albanian, and the Thraco-Phrygian is
Armenian.

This cursory classification omits various dialects, secondary
languages, languages of doubtful status and extinct languages, for
example, Yiddish, Catalan, Pomeranian, Provencal, etc.

>>From this we see that English and Russian, for example, are related
to each other, albeit somewhat distantly. One might ask, “Is this
really the case or is this merely some academic hypothesis?” A
comparison provides the answer.

In comparing English and Russian vocabulary to see if we can see
their interrelationship, we must discard from consideration similar
words that have been borrowed by both languages from other languages,
especially Greek, Latin and French. So we disregard pairs like the
following: revolution-revolyutsiya; communism-kommunizm;
zoologist-zoolog; automobil-avtomobil’; hero-geroi; bank-bank;
journal-zhurnal; cosmonaut-kosmonavt; disinformation-dizinformatsiya;
police-politsei; ocean-okean; captain-kapitan; number-nomer.

We must also disregard words borrowed from Russian into English,
including these: mammoth, tundra, tsar, chernozem, steppe, taiga,
podzol, troika, balalaika, beluga, Alaska, samovar, knish, yarmolke,
blintz. Similarly, we must exclude words borrowed directly into
Russian from English: demping (economic dumping); biznesmen
(businessman); kseroks (xerox); rok (rock-and-roll); oposum
(opossum); dzhinsy-jeans; match-match (contest); beisbol-baseball.

Having done this, we are in a position to see whether there remain
any words in common, and the answer is, “Definitely”- Here are some
very obvious and interesting correspondences: moloko-milk;
kholod-cold; volk-wolf; gus’-goose; doch-daughter; syn-son;
mat’-mother; sestra-sister; lyubit’-love; bit’-beat; byt’-be;
zhevat’-chew; sneg-snow; voda-water; vino-wine; yabloko-apple;
stal’-steel; serebro-silver; lyogkiy-light (in weight); khleb-loaf
(of bread); dva–two; tri–three; shest-six; sem-seven;
dvadtsat-twenty; tridtsat-thirty; mecyats-month/moon; solntse-sun;
koleno-knee; cidyet’-sit; stat’-stand; lyezhat’-lie (recline);
lozh-lie (untruth); dyen’-day; noch-night; ty-thou; ya–I; menya-me;
yasen’-ash (tree); rozh (rye); noc’-nose; brov’-brow; ot-out/from;
knut’-knout; moch-might (power); moshchniy-mighty; yuniy-young.

There are also cases where the phonetic change has been accompanied
by a shift in meaning as well: strogii-strict (cf. strong);
bukva-letter (cf. book); knyaz’-prince (cf. knight); stul-chair (cf.
stool); godniy-suitable (cf. good); molodoi-young (cf. mild);
vol’niy-free (cf. will); veter-wind (weather).

There are further words that have been shown to be related, both
according to regular phonetic laws and documentation, but that have
changed so drastically that the relationship is barely evident:
zoloto-gold; zheltiy-yellow; zelyoniy-green; derevo-tree; zvezdo-star
(cf. twinkle); gorod-city (cf. yard); zver’-animal (cf. deer);
oko-eye; do-to/until; molot’-grind (cf. mill); nizkii-low (cf.
nether); tserkov’-church.

The epoch when the ancestors of Russian-speakers and English-speakers
were one people must be very remote. One would think that more words
serving as names of plants and animals would have survived from those
prehistoric times as recognizable cognates in the two languages, but
it is hard to find very many. For trees, for example, we have:
sosna-pine; klon-maple; dub-oak; vyshnya-cherry; yiva-willow. For
birds, we have: golub’-pigeon; kuritsa-chicken; lebed’-swan;
utka-duck; yastreb’-hawk.

So the relationship between Russian and English is present, but
tenuous. When you get to Hindi or Persian, though, community with
English becomes well-nigh inappreciable. It’s hard to find any common
words. But I accept the authority of the scholars.

————

About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN
ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so
far.

I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five
continents.