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Readers' Feedback
Language Families
Page 9 of 9
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hi, i'm doing homeowrk, and do u happen to know where the Indo-European language originated from? This is our whole question : Where and when did the Indo-European language originate?
please respond A.S.A.P! Thank you so very, very much!!!
KryssTal Reply: The original Indo-European language is about 5000 years old. There are many ideas about where the language originated. None of them definite. Try this Indo-European site:
i used your language family resource page as a resource in a project i am doing and i needed some information from you so I can add your name in my bibliography:
i need to know if your page was made under any organization or group or anything, or if i should just put your name : Kryss Katsiavriades.
KryssTal Reply: My name is fine - my web site is called KryssTal
How many letters are in the Hawaiian alphabet?
KryssTal Reply: No idea. Try one of the language links on my web page.
Hello,
It was so interesting to read about the Language Groups. I just wanted to make a comment.
According to the article the Basque language is called an independent language. Basque language is in the group of Iberian-Caucasian languages and is closely related to the Georgian language. (The country of Georgia is at the Black Sea).
In fact these to people (i.e. Basques and Georgians) are related nations. Iberian Caucasian Languages are mainly spoken in the Caucasus. The Georgian language (which is unfortunately not listed in the article) has one of the 14 unique alphabets in the world. Because of the "consonant clusters" the Georgian language is listed among the unique languages of the world. I think it would be difficult for you to try and pronounce "gvbrdgvnis", which means "he is tearing us apart". :-)
If you'd like to find out more about this language visit the following website:
And again, it was nice to visit your web page.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your kind comments.
I have indeed heard rumours of a link between the Basque language and the Caucasian languages but I have not seen anything definite. I will indeed check the web page you recommend and if necessary make the change to my page. The reason that I have not included the Caucasian languages (amongst others) is lack of time. The web site is slowly growing.
First of all, I found your page very fascinating. I just studied the Malay language in KL, and I used your page to confirm that it was Malayo-Polynesian, as somebody asked me for it.
Anyway, it's very rare to find elaborations on the modern Germanic languages, such as Swedish, which is my mother tongue. It might be a good thing to go further into the grammar of such languages, because there are some distinctions from other languages.
Swedish is told apart from e.g. English, German and Dutch, while, like Chinese and Thai, being a tone language. As Chinese has four and Thai five, Swedish has only two tones. Nevertheless, they exist, and this makes Swedish outstanding from the rest of the Germanic languages. I am not sure whether Norweigan and Danish shares the same pattern. I'll give you some examples from Swedish though:
gripen can mean two things, depending on tone. On one hand it means 'touched' (in a figurative way of speaking), and on the other it means 'the griphon'.
tomten can also mean two things, depending on which of the tones you use. It means 'The Santa Claus' in the second tone, and 'the back yard' in the first Swedish tone.
Thank you for providing the information of language families throughout the world, apart from this. Please check this out if it isn't already of your knowledge.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your kind comments. This is very interesting and I did not know about it. I checked it out and you were correct. A few European languages have this property. I have updated my web Language Families site.
Kryss,
I'd like to heartily congratulate you on your website (and links) on language families-- it is fascinating, extensive, and quite detailed! I keep referring back to it!
However, I am a little disappointed with your coverage of Africa. You have a link to the Afro-Asiatic language family, which is very interesting, but then all of the Sub-Saharan African languages are just mentioned in a couple of lines at the end with "other (minor) languages".
Given the population of Sub-Saharan Africa and the diversity of languages there, it would seem that one or more of these families warrent a little more elaboration. I'm sure you're really busy, but if you ever get around to doing it, here's at least one reader who would really appreciate your efforts!
Thanks a lot and keep up the good work!
KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your kind comments. The reason that sub-Saharan languages are given only minor consideration is due entirely to my ignorance. This is the only major area of the world that I have not visited. I plan a visit in 2001 for the African eclipse. I hope to learn more at that time to add to the language page.
I speak English, Spanish, am learning French, and plan to attack either Arabic or Swahili after that. Do you know how many people speak Swahili in the world?
KryssTal Reply: The best figure I have is around 15 million. Which part of Africa are you from?
I'm American, half Black and half White. My parents wanted to give me an African name. (I grew up in East and West Africa).
I thought you might be interested -- have you seen the website Ethnologue? It is extremely detailed and technical (too much so, I fear-- its not half as interesting as yours was to read). But it might prove useful to you.
Also, you might add Kirghiz (the language of Kyrghystan) to the Altaic language family. It would complete the list.
KryssTal Reply: Well spotted, it's now been added.
Language study is just budding hobby of mine, but obviously for you it is a real passion. I can't say that my Internet searching has been exhaustive, but regardless, your site is the most interesting and insightful that I have found thusfar. Simple, yet technical, and very complete. Well done.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you very much for your kind comments.
What are some good resources for further study? Also, I once had a nice map of Eurasia that graphically depicted the various families and branches and their relationships but that map is lost and I am having a difficult time finding something in that vein.....any suggestions???
Finally, I am particularly interested in Basque, what resources can you suggest?
KryssTal Reply: Linguistic maps are available from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Languages. Try typing the URL below it will list all the sites in the Languages and Linguistics web ring which is a collection of sites similar to mine.
The Latin Branch
KryssTal Reply: Obrigado (thank you) for your very interesting email about the Portuguese language. You have made many good points which I respond to below.
Italian and Spanish are the closest modern major languages to Latin.
This statement is debatable. "Closest" refers to what: pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary or grammar ? And which item is the most important? I guess it is vocabulary and grammar! I have no doubt about the "closeness" of Italian in the four items, but Portuguese is surely more close to Latin than Spanish regarding grammar. Portuguese has a more conservative grammar than Spanish, because has kept Latin grammatical features that disappeared from Spanish long ago (just a small example: "dois" and "duas" for "two" when referring to "two" (masculine and feminine).
KryssTal Reply: Yes, you are absolutley correct. I noticed this in Brazil.
For example the word for Egg: Latin OVUM; Portuguese: OVO; Spanish: HUEVO.
Ant: Latin: FORMICA; Portuguese: FORMIGA; Spanish: HORMIGA.
I will change this statement on my web page.
Portuguese has been separate from Spanish for over 1000 years.
Do you mean that Portuguese is a derivative of Spanish? Do you say that just because Spain is bigger than Portugal ? It's an insult to the Portuguese! Portuguese, Spanish (Castillian) and Catalan are more or less contemporary languages originated in the Latin language spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. NO ONE of theses languages derived from each other.
KryssTal Reply: I do not mean that Portuguese is derived from Spanish. The two languages: Portuguese and Spanish (or Spanish and Portuguese) have been distinct for over 1000 years.
Galician is a Portuguese dialect with Celtic influences spoken in the north west of Spain.
1- Portuguese is a development of the Galician Language. Better said, Galician and Portuguese are the same language called "Galician-Portuguese". Galicia ceased to be an independent country, in Middle Ages it was annexed by Castille (Spain), and could not develop its language. The nobility, the cultural and social elite was forced to move to Madrid and Galician language was regarded as "underclass". Galician lost its status of official language, being used mainly by rural people while Spanish was adopted by the urban population. Only recently has Galician gained some recognition as official language, but Galicians suffer from an deep-rooted inferiority complex and prefer to speak Spanish outside home.
When Portugal separeted from Galicia in the 12th Century its language was the Galician. Portugal became an independent country and the Galician spoken there could develop into a modern language because it was the language of the Royal Court and of the cultural elite.
To conclude, it can be said that Galician-Portuguese is a single language (with small grammar differences) but with two variants regarding vocabulary and pronunciation: Galician has an "arcaic" flavour with a strong Castillian (Spanish) influence on vocabulary and accent, while Portuguese is more modern language which could evolve on their own. The two variants are 99% mutually intelligible.
2- The existence of a particular Celtic influence on the language is 0 (Nil). Galician-Portuguese has as much Celtic influence as other European languages. However the Celtic influences exist in popular culture (mithology, folklore, religion,etc) the same way as in Northern Portugal.
KryssTal Reply: My understanding is that Galicia was one of the last outposts of Celtic culture and influence in mainland Europe.
I hope I could help you to improve your interesting homepage.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you
Hello, I find your page very informative. I am just curious. Does the Filipino main language Tagalog fall under the same family as the Indo-malay family? Or will it fall under the Euro family? Or probably under tonal along with chinese? I have noticed by perception, that alot of the words we use come from the southern dialects of China, as to Fukunese, but rather changed to fit the limited vowel forms. I have been interested in this language, not that I am a native, but the unoriginal yet evolved forms of words which they borrow from their neighbors/conquerors. I hope you can help me in this. There are not that much linguistic books on this specific language, and I believe there should. I have tried looking through websites as well because I am interested in learning more about linguistics and my major is in the East Asian Languages. Thank you for taking your time in helping me.
KryssTal Reply: Hello, Tagalog is a Malayo-Polynesian language. Look for it on the page below...
Malayo-Polynesian Languages www.krysstal.com/langfams_malayo.html
Dear Sir,
Your list of most spoken languages interesting but not complete. I was not able to see Turkish as an Altaic language in the list. It should be there since Turkish is spoken by at least 300 million people in the world.
KryssTal Reply: I have counted Turkish, Azeri, Uzbek, Turkmen and Uigir as separate languages. This is a difficult point.
Tesekur (thank you)
Thanks for your kind response.
Turkish, Azeri, Özbek, Kazak, Kirgiz, Uygur, Türkmen, Çuvas, Tatar etc. are linguistically considered Turkish, at least I can understand them. Most notable is Uygur, despite the distance of location (Eastern Turkistan) the dialect is very close to Turkey Turkish.
History of Turkish language is one of my interests and I own many books, including Sir Clauson's "Etymology of pre-thirteenth century Turkish". We may exchange knowledge.