Language Families
A language family is a group of languages that all came from the same old language. These languages are related because they developed from a common ancestor language, also called a parent language.
Over time, people speaking that parent language spread out and their speech changed, creating new languages.
For example, Latin is the parent language of French, Italian, and Spanish. Similarly, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit came from an even older language called Proto-Indo-European. This ancient language was the source of many modern languages spoken today in Europe and the Indian subcontinent.
There are 7,164 living languages in the world. These languages belong to 142 different language families. A living language is one that people still use in their daily life.
Six Largest Language Families
Out of the 142 families, six are the biggest:
1. Indo-European
2. Niger-Congo
3. Austronesian
4. Trans-New Guinea
5. Sino-Tibetan
6. Afro-Asiatic
These six language families cover about five-sixths of the world’s population.
The Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan families have the most speakers, over 4.6 billion combined. English (Indo-European) and Chinese (Sino-Tibetan) are the most spoken languages. Chinese has the most native speakers (almost 1 billion). English has around 350 million native speakers, but is used widely around the world. If we count both native and non-native speakers, English is the most spoken language in the world.
Three Major Language Families
1. Indo-European Family
This is the largest language family. It includes many languages spoken in Europe and South Asia. The family is divided into smaller groups:
Germanic: English, German, Danish, Swedish
Italic: Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Celtic: Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Breton
Balto-Slavic: Russian, Polish, Czech, Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Indo-Iranian: Hindi, Nepali, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Persian, Pashto, Kurdish
Hellenic: Greek
These languages all developed from the ancient Proto-Indo-European language.
2. Sino-Tibetan Family
Also known as the Indo-Chinese family, it includes: Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, Sherpa, Newari,etc. These languages are mostly spoken in China, Tibet, Nepal, and nearby regions.
3. Niger-Congo Family
These languages are mainly spoken in Africa, especially in the eastern and central regions. Examples include: Zulu, Swahili, Xhosa, Bassa,etc.