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Readers' Feedback Language Families Page 4 of 9 Generated : 28th September 2025

060

Dear Sir,

I would like that discrimination against my language and culture would stop STOP. If you dont know romance languages, is better dont write about, Why Moldavian (just Romanian), Galician (just Portuguese), Corsican (just Italian), you consider language and all different languages like:

West Lombard-Insubrian, East Lombard-Orobic, Piedmontese, Ligurian, Emilian, Romagnol, Sicily Padanian, Venetian, Istrian, Frioulan, Dolomite Ladin, Romantsch Ladin, Sardinian Logudorese, Sardinian Campidanese, Sardianian Sassarese, Toscan, Corsican, Italian, Umbrian-Marchigiano North, Umbrian-Marchigiano South, Sabine, Romanesco (Rome and Latium), Neapolitan and Campano, Apuliese and Daunic, Abruzzese and Molisan, Calabrese North and Central, Sicilian, South Calabrese, Salentine, Cilentano.

Example of WEST LOMBARDIAN-INSUBRIAN comparated with Italian

Italian "oggi ho visto tre ragazzi e tre ragazze" becomes "incoeu g'hu veduu (french u) tri bagaj e tre tuzan" (today I have seen three boys and three girls).

bagaj = welsh bacgen

Really you think that Lombard and the other languages of Italy are just dialects of Italian?

mario righi (= righi > rix like vergingetorix)

059

I am Samoan and is really in to polynesian origins and relation to other peoples of the world. In the linguistic side of things, i am more fascinated of Japan's links with the austronesian family of languages. Since Japans proximity to Siberia and northeast asia suggest altaic affinities in the japanese language and austronesian influences from the south, there might be, racially speaking, a Siberian homeland for the polynesians and austronesians. The fact that Mongoloid features of the "classical" type are numerous throughout polynesia indicate that there may have been an Altaic influence already present in japan before the austronesian popn started to venture southward into taiwan, the philippines and through the pacific with a common language where i am stuck with the whereabouts of its origins. help

058

Hi guys

I found your article about Indo-European languages fancinating. I found a couple of points though that seem to contradict what I have already heard, please let me know if I am mistaken or otherwise. By the way.... excellent web page, very interesting material, keep up the good work ;-)

"English is a Germanic Language of the Indo-European Family. It is the second most spoken language in the world."

Surely it is the 3rd as it has Chinese (I think 1 billion) and Indian (I think 750 million).

"English has lost gender and case. Only a few words form their plurals like German (ox, oxen and child, children). Most now add an s, having been influenced by Norman French."

Surely this is not totaly true, I have only studied German cases, but we(English) seem to have at least two aswell e.g...

'I'(nomitive) verses 'me'(accusitive/dativ) and she(nomitive) verses 'her'(accusitive/dativ)

'I said it to her' reversed becomes 'she said it to me'.

Then some more changes with the Genitive case

'I' becomes 'my'
'her' stays 'her'
'he' becomes 'his'

'She said my hair looks good'
'I said her hair looks good'
'I said his hair looks good'

Thanks for you help guys

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your kind comments.

Your list of languages spoken is, I think, more accurate than mine. I know that recently Hindi (not Indian - there are 800 languages in India!) has overtaken English in the list.

As soon as I get accurate figures I will change the table listing.

You are correct about cases. We have the genitive (man -> man's) and the personal pronouns have accusative and genitive. Generally however, the large number of cases common to Indo-European languages are missing from English.

Keep studying.

057

Thank you. I am trying to learn the Somali language and this has led me to attempt to learn more about Cushitic languages, about which there is very little information on the Internet. But your site was impressive both for its breadth and its depth. Congratulate yourselves, you have done some impressive work.

Mahadsanid!

056

I have recently seen your website which I found really interesting, in particular the web pages on mathematics. I also briefly looked at the web pages on languages, and here I found some imprecision.

About Japanese you say:

"Japanese is still written with Chinese characters (called Kanji) but there are two other alphabetic scripts. Hiragana is used to indicate prefixes and suffixes while Katakana is used for foreign words."

Hiragana and Katakana are not alphabetic scripts, they are syllabaries, as you correctly point out in your web page on writing. Hiragana is also used to indicate the pospositions.

I found the following sentence a little bit strange:

"Galician is a Portuguese dialect with Celtic influences spoken in the north west of Spain."

Why do you think Galician has more Celtic influences than Portuguese? Given the history of the Galician and Portuguese languages, why should that be the case? As far as I can see the two languages (I prefer avoid the term "dialect") are almost undistinguishable (I'm a Portuguese native speaker), and the differences are probably easy to trace to some structures in Latin, not to a (pre-roman) Celtic language. I'd love to know your opinion.

KryssTal Reply: Obrigado

Yes, your point about syllabaries is correct. I'll correct it soon. The Celtic influences were advised to me by an email correspondent. I see your point since the two languages are close.

Thank you for your comments.

055

Hi my name is Andy Cooper -- I love your website. It filled up a lot of gaps in my understanding of world language. I plan to study journalism at UF in the fall and minor in linguistics. Great Site! I spent all day checking it out. Very enjoyable.

Thanks So Much,

KryssTal Reply: Thank you - glad to be of help.

054

Just a few remarks. It now seems evident that Northwest Caucasian and Nakh-Daghestani (Northeast) are distantly related. Some slight links with South C are in some NWC morphemes and words, and thus all three might be linked. To lump them all together, however, is simply to subscribe to an old outsiders "shocked" view. For example the NWC family is probably phyletically closer to Indo-Eruopean than it is to NE.

A few people still have some command of Ubykh (NW) and attempts are being made to revive it in (western Turkey). It has 81 consonants. Kabardian along with Besleney fornm the eastern branch of Circassian while the western branch consists of some 7 dialects lumped under the name Adyghey.

The NEC family has three branches: Nakh (Ingush, Chechen, Tsova-Tush/Batsbi), Daghestani (with six sub-branches: (1) Avar (with 9 highly divergent dialects); (2) Andi, Botlikh, Godoberi, Karata, Akhvakh, Chamalal, Bagvalal, Tindi, Udi; (3) Hunzib, Hinukh, Tsez, Khvarshi, Inkhokhvari, Bezhta; (4) Lakk; (5) Dargwa (plus Kubachi); (6) Lezgian, Archi, Agul, Tabassarn, Rutul, Tsakhur, Kryz, Budukh, and a coordinate language: Khinalug.

Efforts by some of my colleagues to link some of the old Middle Eastern languages with various Caucasian branches have born mixed fruit. Hattian appears to be a distant outlyer of Abkhaz and therefore a member of the NWC family. Vannic and Urartean may be linked to southern Daghestani, where Khinalug stands apart from the rest of the family and suggests an older series of diverging languages that trailed off further south. Hans Faehnrich has tried to link Sumerian to Georgian or NEC. I suspect that it is a sole attestation of a lost "Caucasian" family in the spirit of what is preserved today, and shows transitional fiugures linking it to SC and NEC. The Sumerians themselves, who started out by calling themselves "Kanga" and only later shifted to "Shumer," say that they came from the mountains to the north. The langauge itself does not look particularly Caucasian, even as we assume Caucasian languages must have looked 5000 years ago.

The link between Basque and Caucasian is an old 19th century notion. The latest ideas link it with Etruscan, which in turn has some Agean links. This looks like an old Mediterranean complex of languages or families. Note the Dravidian term for 'village' /urra/, the Elamite term for 'city' preserved in Ur and Uruk, and the isolated Latin term for the same /urbe/, doubtless a local word. There a numerous other "Mediterranean" words, some of which, however, such as /auso-/ for 'spring,' are actually IE, (where /auso-/ refers to springs).

Your site is very interesting and useful. Do you know of any works later than that of Stephen Tyler which link Dravidian and Uralian? A geneticist at my university has found mitochondrial ties between Dravidian and Uralianh populations and between northern Aryan populations and those of the Europeans, with the highest incidence among the phyletically related Circassians.

053

Your site is fantastic! I've been working with borrowings in my reading classes and will recomend the site to my students.

As a speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, I know that Tupi is not a Peruvian language - when Brazil was 'discovered' in the 1500s, it was spoken in the whole east coast of Brazil. Modern Tupi is still spoken in the Amazon Region, though. And I'm quite sure buccanneer and cayenne are not Tupi words (maybe French or Carib). Could you check it, please?

Thanks for the wonderful site.

052

Enjoyed your website very much. My research indicates that the language of the Scottish lowlands ,"Scots" , does not refer to Gaelic (i.e., the Celtic language of the Scottish Highlands) but to the Germanic language of the Scottish Lowlands, a language that is closely akin to but separate from English (including Scottish English). While influenced by Gaelic at different periods of it's development, the language was much more infuenced by the same factors that English was, (Angles, Saxons, Normans, Vikings) and by English itself. Please see:

and also:

Thanks, and keep on with your good work.

051

Hello,

Nice informative site you have, one question though.... your webpage states

"Written Old English is mainly known from this period. It was written in an alphabet called Runes, derived from Celtic. The Latin Alphabet was brought over from Ireland by Christian missionaries."

Runes are Norse, they did not come from the Celts, Irish Druids are known to have used Ogham however but not for writing as such. Your thoughts on this would be most welcome. Best wishes.