Language Families & Branches
This term refers to a collection of languages related through a common ancestral language before recorded history.
What is a language family?
One theory suggests the Indo-European language family spread through the migration of agricultural peoples from this region around 7000–6000 BCE.
What is the Anatolian (or Turkey) hypothesis?
The Indo-European language family includes this branch, from which English originated.
What is the West Germanic branch?
Another theory posits that Indo-European languages spread through conquest and migration of these peoples from the Pontic-Caspian steppe around 4000 BCE.
What is the Kurgan hypothesis?
These smaller divisions within a branch consist of languages with a relatively recent common origin and similar vocabulary.
What are language groups?
This modern global language is a direct descendant of the West Germanic branch and has been shaped by Norse, Latin, and French influences.
What is English?
A specific form of speech used by a community that may differ slightly in vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation from other forms of the same language is called this.
What is a dialect?
English diffused globally through colonization, trade, and this other major historical factor.
What is globalization / modern media?
The process by which a language spreads to new regions or people, often resulting in regional variations or new languages, is called this.
What is diffusion?
Today, English is spoken worldwide and functions as this type of language, used for communication between speakers of different native languages.
What is a lingua franca?