Language Families

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.

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.

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.

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.

How many letters are in the Hawaiian alphabet?

KryssTal Reply: No idea. Try one of the language links on my web page.

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

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:

Hello!

Thanks for the nice page!

I was surfing to see what's linguistic classification/relationship of/between Finnish and Turkish, since I am a Turk living in Finland, so Yahoo brought your page up to me. In Turkey, about our language, we learn the way 'uralic-altaic' examined together, here in Finland, they do not learn any of that sort, most of them thinks Turkish is a sort of Arabic, or something. Of course, that sounds ridicoulus to me, while I cannot pronounce Arabic 'kh's, and all those sounds coming from deep throat, and when learning Finnish, everything in grammar seems familiar, and pronouncation is extremely easy for me..

Anyway, to come to the point, your example in Turkish,

those last to of them are not 'OUR house' or 'to OUR house'.. it says 'YOUR house' in this way. If you like to say *OUR* you have to write EVLERIMIZ(E).

I don't think this is any major, but anyway..

All the best

KryssTal Reply: Tesekur ederim (thank you)

Glad you enjoyed the page.

on [your] site you list the most spoken 20 languages. There are more than 100 million Turkish speaking people in the near east. So what about an update?

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments.

I think you are counting languages like Azeri, Uzbek, Turkmen, Kazakh and other languages of Central Asia along with Turkish. If all of these languages are included then there are over 100 million "Turkish" speakers.

I will check the current figures to see if Turkish is now in the "Top 20".

Teshekur Ederim (thank you).

Hi,

  Just browsing for info. on a paper I'm doing about Aramaic. You list Aramaic, Syriac, and Assyrian as extinct languages. It seems to me that there are many living dialects of Aramaic (the Ethnologue lists over 10) and that modern Aramaic dialects are often used synonomously with the name Syriac. Although Biblical Syriac may be "dead" I don't think that makes Syriac "extinct" anymore than English moving on from Old and Middle English extinguished the language of English.

Here is a good web page about modern Aramaic

Here is another web page about Aramaic history

Here's the Ethnologue ref

I appreciate your pages. Thanks

KryssTal Reply: Thanks for the info. I did visit a couple of villages in Syria where Aramaic was supposed to be spoken. I'll check the sites you recommend out and make any relevant changes.

Dear Mr. Katsiavrides,

Your Language Families site is interesting and useful. Thank you for taking the time and effort to inform us laymen.

In Thailand an ancient language called "khom" or "kom" is still un use for religious and magical purposes. I believe it is a dead language in the sense that there is no population speaking it, but it is still used in mantras, inscriptions and magical protective symbols.

Some people say it is related to the Cambodian and Mon languages. Others say it is derived from Pali. Have you heard of this language? Where would I find information on its origin and history?

Thank you for any ideas you may have on this.

KryssTal Reply: Sawat Dii (Good day)

Thank you (kop koon khrap) for your kind comments. You may find the information you require on the site below:

Do a search on KOM.

Khap khoon krap: thanks for your help. This led me to a lot of interesting information. Finally, I suppose the "Khom" still used here for ritualistic purposes is an old form of Khmer (alt Khome) rather than the sino-tibetan Kom listed as an Indian language. The alphabet used is similar to Thai. Maybe it was even the script from which the Thai alphabet was modified.

Thanks

Dear Kryss:

You will probably find the Web site of the Summer Institute of Linguistics fascinating. See specifically a listing of all the world's languages and dialects.

It is incorrect to state that Hausa is the only member of the Chadic branch of Afro-Asiatic. This branch contains nearly two hundred languages.

Hello!

My native language is Romanian and I was surprised to find moldovian both under the romance branch and under the slavic branch. The relationship between romanian and moldovian is similar to that between serbian and croatian, namelly they are the same language but due to political reasons they are considered different.

Some linguists (e.g. Taglianini) believe moldovian is a dialect of romanian. Romanian and moldovian share the same morphology and syntax and now use the same (latin) alphabet. There are very small differences in pronunciation and there are probably more slavic lexical items in moldovian than in romanian.

When the province of Moldova was attached to the former USSR politically motivated soviet linguists tried to make the argument that romanian and moldovian are different languages as romanian and italian are different languages. Taglianini in his "Le lingue neo-latine" has a good discussion about this.

Hope this helps.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your help.

Interesting website! Just a few corrections:

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments (or should I say "shukran")

On the page about the Afro-Asiatic branch: Aramaic is not extinct. It is still spoken in two christian villages in Syria plus several villages in Iraq (also Christian). I personally had an Iraqi friend whose mother tongue was Aramaic.

KryssTal Reply: You are correct - I need to change it to "almost extinct". I visited one of the Aramaic villages in Syria in 1986.

On the main page: All plurals in Arabic are *not* irregular. In fact most are regular ending in 'in / un' for masculine nouns and 'at' for feminine nouns.

KryssTal Reply: I meant the changes to the vowels not the endings. I will recheck my research though.

On the main page: You list Japanese as an Altaic language. It isn't.

KryssTal Reply: I had it listed as "Independent" until I received a paper from a US University which had some recent research proving the link between Japanese and the other Altaic languages. I think there is still much debate about this.

Hi,

1- Which family does Egyptian fit into?

KryssTal Reply: In Egypt, Arabic is spoken. Ancient Egyptian was probably a Semitic language.

2- Can you recommend a site posting language Family Trees?

KryssTal Reply: My Language Families page has some families

3- Do you also know if any Trees exist indicating approximately when (year, centuries, eras) the different languages branched off?

KryssTal Reply: Try [this site]:

In para 1 of the Sino-Tibetian Family section of your Language Families, you state that the Thai word MA can mean not, burn, wood, no or mother. For the first four of these, I believe you mean MAI. MA, depending on tone, can be dog, horse, or to come.

Neither is a good transliteration of the word for mother. This is so, MAI?

KryssTal Reply: Thank you - my memory isn't what it used to be.

Good afternoon,

My name is Timothy Dodd and I go to school at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado, USA. I have a question about your list of the 20 most spoken languages.

Does your list only includes the number of primary speakers? If so, are there any lists that include the number of people that speak a particular language including those that speak it as a second language? Also, do you have lists that include populations that live outside of a particular region? (For example, many ethnic Chinese live outside of China's borders in other parts of Southeast Asia, but they still speak Mandarin). I was just curious after looking at your [web] page.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your kind comments. A good source of the type of information you require is The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Languages.

These web sites might help:

Dear Sire,

You forgot the languages of american Native ? did you? languages of Tunguzes, Giliaks... ?

KryssTal Reply: I did not forget - I don't know enough about them! I am still learning.

A comment about Korean script: you mentioned that Korean evolved separately from all the other scripts in the world having been invented a few hundred years ago.

While this is partially true, King Sae Jong in 1592 commissioned scholars to travel throughout Asia studying their scripts. Thus, Korean script is made up of a large number of characters from other languages (Chinese "grass" characters, even ancient Dravidian, etc.).

Enjoyed your language information on the web. Thanks.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments.

Just read your summary on languages. Need a few comments.

To each person his language is most important, whatever the big picture is to them irrelevant. In a different age non Indo European languages were also important. Egyptian, Assyrian, Sumerian, Chinese etc are nothing to sneeze at. The current English madness will also pass, just as these have passed.

KryssTal Reply: I hope I was not sneezing at other languages. I was stating the fact that English is a very important language *at this time*. and is likely to remain so during our life times. I appreciate that other languages are culturally important and do not like the idea of languages disappearing or being politically discriminated against.

Why is English a "madness". It, too, is a valid language. All languages borrow from others they come into contact with. Although the language originated in England, it is actually the commercial pressures of the United States that have made the language so prevalent.

The FinnUgor languages are not Inflected at all, noun cases as you mentioned are generated by suffixes and the root word is never changed! All of what you said about Altaic applies also to FinnUgor, being very similar even down to most of the basic vocabulary. Naturally there are changes in pronunciation due to a few thousand years.

KryssTal Reply: My knowledge of the Uralic languages is less than yours and I take your comments on board. Please note that the word "inflected" means that endings change.

In general I enjoyed your page as a sort of introduction to what this great quiltwork of a world we live in.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments.

A friend of mine from India bemoans the loss of Hindi to English, which was forced on them during the colonialization

KryssTal Reply: It was not forced on them in the same way that Spanish was forced in Latin America. Indian Indians still have their names; in Latin America the indigenous people have Spanish names! In South India, Tamils are bemoaning the adoption of Hindi as *the* national language because it belongs to a different family. In Turkey, Kurdish was, until recently, banned.

Cultural imperialism is not confined to English speakers.

English itself seems like an incredible hodge poge,

KryssTal Reply: This is one of its strengths. It has taken from a wide range of languages.

but is a good simple basic language for commerce. That has been its main history.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for responding.

Hi I was looking at your site, and I loved it.

I suspected that Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic language brothers. Arabic borrowed many words from other close languages, they include Torah, Injil, Iblees, Isa, Pharoah, etc. I have been researching Akbar. The word is originally found in the ancient Assyrian language (around Babylon in 2500 B.C.) This word is also found in the Hebrew language and then it made its way to the Arabic language. It is basically the same spelling, in Hebrew and Arabic it is the same spelling. akbar. It is found in Lev 11:29 in Hebrew. I haven't been able to find this word in no earlier date in Arabic. This word isn't originally Arabic, even some Muslims have told me that so if this word is originally found in other close semitic languages with no proof at all of it being in the Arabic language (a new language) this word obviously can't be Arabic.

What is your idea on this. Please respond a.s.a.p.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you - I suspect that all languages that cover large areas (like Arabic) will have borrowed words from the languages they encounter. I don't know too much about the history of Arabic but your ideas sound reasonable.

Hey Kryss darling,

You might not care but I thought you should know that you made a glaring error concerning Sino-Tibetan where you say that "MEN" in Mandarin can mean "gate" or "we" depending on the tone. Make sure you get your facts straight. You're right about "men" (rising tone) being "gate" but "we" is "wo-men". The "wo" part is the most important part which, of course, means "I/me/my". The "-men" part (neutral tone) is merely a suffix signifying a pronominal plural (In Cantonese, -de is used for the pronominal plural as in ngo-de/'o-de "we", lei-de/nei-de "you all", koey-de/hoey-de "they"). There is also "ni-men" and "ta-men" meaning "you all" and "they" in Mandarin. You were probably getting confused with Etruscan "mi", Sumerian "men", Lappish "mon", Yukaghir "met" or Turkish "ben" all signifying "I", you silly goose you.

A common and better example of tone might be the syllable "ma" which can mean "to scold", "horse", "mother", "hemp" or a question marker at the end of a sentence as in "Ni hao ma?". Why, you could even create a meaningless sentence like "Mama ma ma ma?" if you so desired which would mean "Is mother scolding the horse?" with the first syllable being high tone, second being neutral, third being falling, fourth being falling-rising and fifth being neutral.

As for Cantonese having _nine_ tones, that's a matter of opinion. Cantonese is a language all its own really and it has its own dialects. Depending on the geographical area you are talking about, Cantonese might be said to have six to nine tones. As well, Cantonese's "high level tone" which was in use a hundred years ago is no longer popular and has merged with another tone called "high falling" so it also depends on whether you want to count these ancient tones too.

By the way, it would be fair to your viewers to also mention that Thai is becoming a contraversial group within Sino-Tibetan. So far as I hear through the grapevine, Thai is mostly viewed as being seperate from Sino-Tibetan now. Perhaps they had been initially grouped together simply because they both share tones and a common but distinctly Sino-Tibetan number system. A budding theory called "Austro-Thai" might link Thai ultimately with Austronesian languages like Tagalog (a major Philipino dialect), Indonesian and Hawaiian however there is a competing theory called "Austric" which as far as I recall doesn't accept lonely ol' Thai into its clique.

It would be nice if you added Sino-Tibetan reconstructions to your descriptions too like *mlung "heart", *drug "six" or *ktyig "one" and mention about the proto-language's special grammatical feature: "word classes". But oh well, c'est la vie.

Glad though that someone is putting up online info on language families. It's badly needed in this crazy, mixed-up, two-bit world of internet roadkill. God's speed, may the force be with you and all that jazz.

Well, adieu for now, my sweet petunia.

Oh sweet innocent Kryss,

You've been so unjustly wronged. I noticed that you DID mention Thai as possibly being a seperate language family and in my twisted, drug-induced zest had wrongly accused you of not being upfront with your special cabbage-headed web-audience. I suppose the blinding, grey background evocative of an unsolvable stereogram lead me horribly astray. Apologies. May you find it in your precious heart to forgive me.

Well, off to save a helpless child from a burning building... Up, up and away!

KryssTal Reply: What are you on, old chap?

Taken your notes on board and will make appropriate changes soon.

I'm sorry there, Kryss. How naughty of me to frighten you so. Don't worry. You'll be happy to know that I never stalk, kill or maim, on the first date. I'm quite harmless really. I lied about the drug-induced thing unless you count tetracycline as a drug and I'm off it now. I SWEAR!!! My complexion has never been better :P

I'm just high on life & linguistics and partially hypnotized by the anonymity of the internet medium (I'm really a 40 year-old lesbian with a prosthetic leg... or am I??). Anyways, on impulse and for cheap thrills, I decided to dowse somebody with my zealous opinions and knowledge in the subject using my special narrative style.

I hope I didn't do too much damage to your sense of reality. Be well, my love and I'll always keep the words that we shared dear to my heart. Now it's time to move on, excuse me :P

KryssTal Reply: My sense of reality will get a jolt in a 15 days when I experience my 7th total eclipse of the sun (weather permitting). I enjoyed your email and appreciated your obvious knowledge on a fascinating subject.

The statement that the other Germanic languages originated from Anglo-Saxon is totally untrue. Anglo-Saxon was taken to Britain by Germanic tribes that invaded Britan from A.C. 400 on. First Saxons, Frisians, Angles and Jutes; later Danes and Norsemen. Dutch is marginatedly closer to English than High German, since the latter, unlike Dutch and English, has been heavily burdened by inflections, and a cumbersome grammar. German is also behind in the evolution of consonants into softer sounds.

Frisian is not closer to English than to Dutch. It is closer to Dutch than to English. The Frisians like to state the former, because they have a few words that look more like English than like Dutch. The Dutch could claim the same, but are not interested. The Frisians, when composing their dictionary, will consistently enter a new word, chosen from a number of versions spoken in their province, that is the most remote from Dutch. It is something like in Quebec, where Stop has become Arret in spite of the fact that in France it is Stop.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments.

To whom it may concern:

I think that the Altaic language chart on your web page is incomplete, being that Japanese is absent from it. There is much conclusive evidence out there -- although not readily available to everyone -- that japanese is definitely related to the Altaic family of languages.

Before one can place Korean within the Altaic family, they first have to place it with Japanese -- Korean has much more similarities to Japanese than with any other Altaic language. As a matter of fact, there are some cognates that appear only in Japanese and Korean, and not in the other 3 subfamilies. Furthermore, when we look at the counting system, Japanese has much more cognates with Manchu-Tungusic than any other altaic language.

This along with proven sound correspondences, etc., merits Japanese a secure place within the Altaic family. Please see the attachment to this e-mail. Thank You.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your fascinating information. I will study it and make the necessary changes to my web site.

Hi Kryss

You ommitted Polabian and Kshubian from list of Slavic languages , and Old Prussian (extinct) from the Baltic list. What about the following Germanic ones ? : Lutzeburgisch, Platt Deutsch, Lowland Scots, Schweitzer-Deutsch, Alsatian, Faroese ? And under Romance languages : Friuli, Corsican, Caribbean Creole ?

KryssTal Reply: Thanks - the trick is to put enough detail to make it interesting without swamping the reader with information. But I'll check these out for inclusion. Thank you for your interest!

A few minor corrections:

1) "Latin Branch" should be "Italic Branch".

KryssTal Reply: Quite correct, but I prefer the *Latin* term. These languages can also be labled Romance

2) "Catalonian" should be "Catalan".

KryssTal Reply:Quite correct - I'll change it.

3) "Czeck" should be "Czech".
4) "Ukranian" should be "Ukrainian".
5) "Devanagarni" should be "Devanagari"

KryssTal Reply: Spelling has never been my strong point - he said, sheepishly ...

6) "Lappish" is considered derogatory: change to "Sámi".

KryssTal Reply: I didn't know that - I don't want to insult anybody.

7) "Malayo-Polynesian" should be "Austronesian", as the family includes the indigenous languages of Taiwan.

KryssTal Reply: Yes, that is an alternative term? I prefer Malayo-Polynesian because it's more descriptive.

8) "Independent" should be "language isolates".

KryssTal Reply: I prefer the former term as it is more familiar.

Note that Korean's status in Altaic is controversial; indeed, the whole Altaic grouping is controversial.

KryssTal Reply: I knew that - there are obviously lots of hypotheses about families. When I was in Korea, I chatted to people about their language and got the idea that it should be included because of the vowel harmony. I must stress however that I am not an expert. Ich bin ein computer programmer.

Thank you again for your comments. I have a chart of the various languages that I plan to install on the web page when I get round to it.

Dear Kryss,

I heard about the Cumbrian language (a Celtic language I had never heard about before) and I wondered whether this language is still alive / spoken, what it sounds like, what the grammar is like, etc.

Do you have information on this or do you know where (on the web or elsewhere) to get such information? It would be very helpful to tell me, if you do know something. Thank you.

KryssTal Reply: I don't know anything about this language but you could try a couple of sites:

The language Ewe is not from Nigeria as was written here, but can be found in Benin Republic and Togo. Thanks.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you - I've changed it

Dear Kryss!

Thank you for your wonderful Page on language families. It presents a good overview on a complex topic.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your very kind comments.

But, there are a few mistakes and some information, I would like to point your attention to. Before I start, an cautionary remark: My knowledge of the English linguistic terms is not that secure, so that you might want to check up on any words, if you want to include any of the following information in your webpage.

1 It appears that the use of language came about independently ...

Some researchers claim this, others don't (difference between monoglottic and polyglottic theories on the phylogenesis of language). The porblem cannot be decided with linguistic means, since the realiability of reconstructions dating back further than 5000 years is not high enough for scientific stattements. As a matter of fact, it doesn't really matter for your topic. Language families show - as you pointed out - the relatedness of languages. If two languages are not part of the same language family, this means that they are unrelated or so distantly related that reconstruction is immpossible.

KryssTal Reply: Yes you are quite correct - your comments provide a good argument for me.

2 Celtic Branch

This branch is very small today (although not quite as small as the illyric branch), but it was one of the largest in Roman times spanning, the Brittish Isles, Porttugal, Spain, France, Parts of Germany and Parts of Asia Minor (I only know the German name of this language/people, i.e. Galather, but they are mentioned in the Bible, Letters from Paul). You also forgot to mention Gallego (Galician) in the North of Spain, which is originally a Celtic language today with a large proportion of Portuguese superstrata. You have included it in the Latin Branch.

KryssTal Reply: This is very interesting - I will investigate further. I agree with your comments about the Celtic languages once being over all of Europe.

3 Germanic Branch

This branch is divided in three parts. a) East-Germanic (died out, but the earliest Germanic documents are written in one of their languages, Gothic). b) West-Germanic: Mainly includes English, German and Dutch (with the varieties you mentioned). Frisian could be included in your list. This is a Westgermanic language spoken in the Netherland (Groningen area) and in the North of Germany. It is not a dialect of German, although many Germans might claim this, but a languagr of its own, closer related to English than to German. c) North-Germanic: Main Languages are the scandinavian languages you mentioned, but you might want to include Faroese, which is spoken on the Faroer islands and has a long literary tradition of ist own.

KryssTal Reply: I hope to include a chart of the Indo-European languages on my web site. These are two interesting language I would include. Frisian is the closest language to English.

3 Latin Branch

cf. Celtic Barnch

4 Slavic branch

There is a Slavic language spoken in the East of Germany (and only there) called Sorbian (this is _not_ Serbo-Croatian), you might also want to include it.

KryssTal Reply: I also know about this - it has two dialects.

5 There are other branches of Indo-European, which are now extinct, namely Tocharian and Hittite.

KryssTal Reply: I know about the Hittites, indeed I've visited their capital in Turkey. I don't know about the Tocharian branch - do you have more on this?

6 The Finnish word for Finland is Suomi

7 Altaic Family

Korean is remarkable, because it is the only language that developed an alphabetical script (Hangul) that is completely unrelated to the Phoenecian alphabet (the common parent of the Greek, Latin, Cyrrilic, runic, Armenian and Georgian and all of the Indian alphabets).

KryssTal Reply: Yes that is correct - I learned it when I was in Korea - it was developed by a king in the 15th Century.

8 Afro-Asiatic

Tigrinya is also one of the Ethiopian languages.

KryssTal Reply: yes - even if Tigre has gained independence.

9 Problem of "Language"

There is a problem with the definition of language. What is considered a language of its own, rests on two variables: distance of relatedness (called "abstand languages" and cultural factors "ausbau languages" - afak English linguists use also the German terms). If you consider only the distance of relatedness, you had to consider German and Dutch the same language (dialect continuum) or German as different languages (mutually unintelligible in the North and South of Germany). A similar thing happens to Scandinavian languages, but they complicate the whole thing even more, since e.g Norwegians claim that the can understand Danish (same language), but many Danish claim that they cannot understand Norwegian (different languages). The same thing happens between other scandinavian people.

KryssTal Reply: O yes, some Bulgarians consider Macedonian to be a dialect; Romanians consider Moldavian (Moldovan?) as a dialect. The Turks go further and call the Kurds, "Mountain Turks" !!

The same thing would happen, when a language has been strongly influenced by other languages: cf.

German: Laib (Brot)
English: loaf (of bread)
Finnish: leippa (bread)

So you have to consider cultural determinants as well, e.g. the existence of a literary tradition, attitudes of the speakers towards each other, history of the language concerned (loans; influence form other languages).

I hope, you find these infos useful.

KryssTal Reply: "this info" not "these infos"

yes thank you - I will change some of the text.

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.

Good luck

Dear Kryss

Thank you very much for the page that was very interesting for me. Unfortunately I could not open it at the second attempt and received the error message that site bandwith quota has been exceeded.

I have a comment or question on your statement that noun "water" (su) is irregular in Turkish. I could not figure it out by myself although my mother language is Turkish. By the way, I assume from your name that you are a Greek.

If correct then Ya tsu (or merhaba komshu) otherwise best regards,

KryssTal Reply: Teshekur - Efharisto.

WHY, THERE İS NOT CAUCASİAN LANGUAGES FAMİLY? AREN'T THEY LİVİNG İN THE WORLD?

KryssTal Reply: They are indeed living in the world but I don't know very much about them.

If that's the case you start to learn please...

KryssTal Reply: Please begin - what can you tell me? Can you list the languages in the Caucasian Family for me. What is the grammer like? Is Georgean included. I have seen its alphabet.

Dear Kryss

I don't know why I sent a protest message you ... I think this is disorder about web-site addresses... I looked your site yesterday and I noticed I have done a fault... I am to be sure of you think about I am a stupid... But , believe please ; I am not stupid , I am only very abstracted in those days.. I hope you excuse me...

KryssTal Reply: No problem, my friend

Hi,

I happened to stumble over your lE languages page, and since I'm a linguist working with these things, I was surprised to find Prussian placed under Germanic languages. There is only one Prussian language, called Old Prussian, which is an extinct member of the Baltic Branch.

KryssTal Reply: This is a language I know very little about.

With regard to Anglo-Saxon it ought to be mentioned that the descendant of its continental sister language Old Saxon is still alive in Northern Germany and the Eastern Netherlands under the name "Low Saxon". Also, Scots is a separate language and not an English dialect, so it ought to be mentioned too.

Flemish is just a dialect group of Dutch, sharing the written language with Netherlands Dutch. Purists use to call this common language "Netherlandic".

It's "Faroese", not "Faroes".

KryssTal Reply: OK

Cornish was revived and can't be called extinct anymore. Moldavian is a Romanian dialect and not a separate language. Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are one and the same language, Serbo-Croatian. The rest is politics.

KryssTal Reply: Different alphabets though - same as Hindi and Urdu.

One Slavic language is lacking: Kashubian (NW Poland). Macedonian is *linguistically* a Bulgarian dialect. And Bulgarian is lacking, too, now we speak of it.

KryssTal Reply: Don't let the Macedonians hear you say that. I will add Kashubian.

Persian branch: This is usually called "Iranian", because Persian = Farsi.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you

And finally, it isn't a good idea to call the Indic branch "Sanskrit branch", because Sanskrit isn't the mother of all Indic languages but just one written form of Old Indic.

KryssTal Reply: That sounds reasonable.

I hope this was of some help.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you - lots to think about there.

Dear Kryss,

I am Billy, 25 years old. I figured I'd send you some material I've been working on concerning the language / race classifications.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments and for taking the time to write.

Unfortunately, I think we view the world from different perspectives. I do not accept the existance of a God; I do not accept the absolute truth of the Bible and neither do I have any problems with evolutionary ideas.

First of all, let me start by stating that there are 4 races / language groups of the human race (Black, White, Brown, and Multiracial / Creole).

KryssTal Reply: I think the genetic and linguistic evidence for this statement is lacking. All people are mixed racially unless they live in isolated communities totally separated from others. Also, race is more than colour.

Multiracial is actually a racial mixture of 2 or 3 of the 3 primary races of man, and Creole is the mixture of two or more languages.

KryssTal Reply: This idea of primary races has echos of ideas from Germany's Hitler period. A creole is a language that is derived from two or more languages. It is usually used IN ADDITION to a person's mother tongue. Most languages borrow from others they come into contact with but this is not a creole.

I am going to assume that most who read these followups are sort of familiar with history and the Bible.

KryssTal Reply: I am familiar with both but do not beleive that the Bible is a 100% account of history.

About 4,344 years ago, Yahweh (God) flooded this whole planet.

KryssTal Reply: I do not think the evidence exists for this statement.

Noah and 7 others survived on board the Ark (Noah and his wife; Noah's 3 sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and there wives).

KryssTal Reply: This is a Babylonian story plagarised by the Israelites. There is no evidence that this actually happend over the entire Earth.

A couple of centuries after the Great Flood when the population was probably 50 to 75,000 people, something happened that would change the world from then on. They all spoke the same language and were racially average as the billions were before the Flood. However, when the people as a whole rebelled and renounced their faith and loyalty in God, and decided to assert themselves as their own gods with pride and disobedience, God eliminated their uniform language into 3 language groups.

KryssTal Reply: This is a fairy story invented by the Bible writers to explain why different languages existed. Modern linguistics began to unravel the history and evolution of languages only in the last couple of hundred years.

At the time of the Confusion at the Tower of Babel, 3 groups or races of people were created also. Shem and his tribe of people (Semites) became the Brown (Morenoid) race, and their language Proto-Semitic or Southwest Asiatic. Ham and his tribe of people (Hamites) became the Black (Negroid) race, and their language group the Hamitic or Proto-Afro-Asiatic. Japheth and his tribe of people (Japhethites) became the White (Blancoid) race, and their language group the Japhetic or Proto-Indo-European. I use the Spanish term for Brown (Moreno). For White I use the Spanish term for White (Blanco) instead of Caucasoid or Caucasian due to the fact that Noah's Ark landed near the Caucasus area of modern Armenia, thus making all people of all races Caucasian. Anyway, there were 26 "sons" of Shem that corresponded to 26 tribes. There were 30 "sons" of Ham with corresponding tribes. There were 14 "sons" of Japheth with corresponding tribes. Here is a chart listing them all.

KryssTal Reply: This is all too simplistic. With respect, I think the idea of tribes doesn't correspond with the plethora of people in the world. This is more mythology than anthropology. Anglo Saxon, Slav, Hausa, or Dravidian are as mixed as Mongolian, Comanche or Turkish.

Shem (Morenoid/Brown) Race (Southwest Asiatics):

1) Elam -------- Elamites
2) Asshur ------ Assyrians
3) Arphaxad ---- Chaldeans
4) Shelah ------ Shelahites
5) Eber -------- Hebrews (Israelites)
6) Peleg ------- Pelasgians
7) Joktan ------ Joktanites
8) Almodad ----- Almodadites
9) Sheleph ----- Shelephites
10) Hazarmaveth - Hazarmavethites
11) Jerah ------- Jerahites
12) Hadoram ----- Adramites
13) Uzal -------- Uzalites
14) Diklah ------ Diklahites
15) Obal -------- Obalites
16) Abimael ----- Abimaelites
17) Sheba ------- Shebahites
18) Ophir ------- Ophirites
19) Havilah ----- Havilahites
20) Jobab ------- Jobarites
21) Lud --------- Lydians
22) Aram -------- Arameans (Syrians)
23) Uz ---------- Uzites
24) Hul --------- Hulites
25) Gether ------ Getherites
26) Mash -------- Mashites

Ham (Negroid/Black) Race (Afro-Asiatics):

1) Cush ----- Nubians (Ethiopians)
2) Seba ----- Sabaeans
3) Havilah -- Havilahites
4) Sabtah --- Sabtahites
5) Raamah --- Raamahites
6) Sheba ---- Shebahites
7) Dedan ---- Dedanites
8) Sabtecah - Sabtecahites
9) Nimrod --- Sumerians
10) Mizra ------Egyptians

These are a mixed collection of peoples, north and south.

11) Lud -------- Ludites
12) Anam ----- Anamites
13) Lehab ---- Libyans

Libyians are Arab - Berber: Libya is a COUNTRY rather than a race (like the Swiss or the USA)

14) Naphtuh -- Naphtuhites
15) Pathruh -- Pathruhsites
16) Casluh --- Philistines
17) Caphtor -- Caphtorites
18) Phut ----- Phutites
19) Canaan --- Canaanites
20) Sidon ---- Sidonians (Phoenicians)
21) Heth ----- Hittites (Chinese=Cathay)

The Hittites spoke an Indo-European language which is now extinct. No connection that I know of with the Chinese.

22) Jebus ---- Jebusites
23) Amor ----- Amorites
24) Girgash -- Girgashites
25) Huru ---- Hivites (Hurrians)
26) Ark ------ Arkites
27) Sin ------ Sinites (Chinese=Dravidians=Native Australians?)
28) Arvad ---- Arvadites
29) Zemar ---- Zemarites
30) Hamath --- Hamathites

Japheth (Blancoid / White) Race (Indo-Europeans):

1) Gomer ---- Cimmerians (Celts)
2) Ashkenaz - Saxons
3) Riphath -- Riphaeans (Paphlagonians=Carpathians)
4) Togarmah - Armenians
5) Magog ---- Tocharians

These are Indo-Europeans who migrated to China. This language is also extinct.

6) Madai ---- Madaeans (Medes=Persians=Aryans)
7) Javan ---- Ionians (Greeks)

There were many Greek cultures in the ancient world: Ionia, Sparta, Macedonia, etc.

8) Elishah -- Aeolians (Cretans=Minoans=Italics=Illyrians)
9) Tarshish - Tartessians
10) Kitt ----- Cyprians (also Cypriots)

Cypriots (of which my parents are examples) are not a separate people. Greeks and Turks live there.

11) Dodan ---- Dardanians
12) Tubal ---- Balts (Iberians)
13) Meshech -- Muscovites (Slavs)
14) Tiras ---- Thracians

There it is; the original 3 races, 3 language groups, and 70 proto-nations from which all other nations, languages, and dialects evolved from. In cases where Hamitic people in ancient history spoke a Semitic language (Canaanites) or vice versa, or a Hamitic people spoke a Japhetic language (Hittites), languages were either forced on or gradually supplanted indigenous languages.

KryssTal Reply: This is still too simplistic. You have not mentioned the Basque language, Burushaski (spoken in one valley in Kashmir), Quechua (Peru), and most of the language groups in Asia.

Also, evidence, lends credit that God induced the racial changes at Babel, too.

KryssTal Reply: There is no mention of this statement even in the Bible.

From the earliest civilizations found, extreme light and dark are already present, which seems to indicate that the racial changes weren't gradual and environmental as many suggest today.

KryssTal Reply: What have you got against changes? Do you consider yourself one of the pure ones?

Most of the Semites, all black-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned, stayed around Mesopotamia or migrated down into the Arabian peninsula except for the Pelasgians who migrated to northern Greece?, and the Lydians who migrated to Asia Minor. It must be added here that Jews are not a race but a religion. A Jew can be any race, but the original Jews were Brown.

KryssTal Reply: Jews are indeed a religion. Israel is a country. There are many languages spoken there since it is mostly a nation of immigrants the majority of whom arrived within the last 150 years. The majority of the Palestinians who have been there for longer. Islam and Christianity are also religions both derived from Judaism.

The Hamites, some with kinky hair and some with straight hair, mainly migrated down into Africa, over into Asia and Indonesia, though some stayed in Southwest Asia (Sumerians, Amorites, Dedanites, Sidonians, Philistines, and a few others) along with the Semites.

KryssTal Reply: These names are an attempt to fit the people of Asia into your tribal hypothesis.

The Japhethites, originally all blond-haired, mainly migrated to Europe and Russia, though some (Medes and Armenians) settled among the Semites, and others settled the coast of North Africa (Greeks), and a branch of the Medes called Aryans eventually settled India.

KryssTal Reply: What you are saying is that groups of people migrated because of the colour of their skin. All the whites went north while the blacks went south. I don't think I have ever encountered this idea before or seen any evidence for it.

The Multiracial race is a mixture of other races.

KryssTal Reply: All people are mixed. In the United Kingdom (my country), the Anglo Saxons displaced and mixed with Celts. Later Vikings raided and added their mix. The Normans arrived in 1066 bringing French language and genes. In the 17 century, there were many German immigrants.

These people also speak vast, age-old creole languages, too.

KryssTal Reply: This is an insult to these people to call their languages creoles. The European Peruvians refer to the Inca language (Quechua) as a dialect when it is in fact a distinct language in its own right!

The Mongoloids (Oriental Asians, many Indonesians, Native Americans, many Pacific Islanders) is the largest class of Multiracial people.

KryssTal Reply: Mongolian is an Altaic language related to Turkish, Uzbek and Korean. It is not a creole. Indonesians speak many languages belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian family. Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese are all written and distinct languages. The country as a whole speaks a national language called Indonesian which is virtually identical to Malay. The reason Malay and Indonesian are called different names is because Malaysia was a British colony while Indonesia was a Dutch colony.

The Mongoloids are mainly a mixture of the 2 Negroid tribes of the Sinites and Hittites; and the 1 Blancoid tribe of the Tocharians, though some Aryans were probably absorbed, too.

KryssTal Reply: This sounds like the sort of thing Hitler would have approved of.

The Hittites, after being defeated once and for all, migrated to China and met up with the Hittites.

KryssTal Reply: I don't understand this sentence.

China comes from Sin, and Cathay from Heth. The unique physical appearance of Mongoloids is not what people expect when thinking of Multiracial, but nevertheless, they are. The Mongoloids were coming into existence around 4,000 years ago.

KryssTal Reply: Archiological evidence would date the Chinese older than this but I suspect ling time periods are not agreeable to you. Large numbers of people in the USA have problems with evolution. This is not the case in Europe. We have a cultural difference here.

Their isolation from others is probably one reason for their physical appearance. Another Multiracial people is the Indians from India.

KryssTal Reply: "Indians from India" - what a great USA sentance. In the UK we would just say Indians. :) Seriously, India is a British invention. There are Punjabis, Gujeratis, Bengalis, Kashmiris and many other groups from North India. All are as mixed as anybody else. There languages are Indo European, derived from Sanskrit. Sanskrit is related to Latin, Greek, Perioan and the fore-runners of English.

They are a mixture of the Negroid Dravidians and the later Blancoid Aryans (Medes).

KryssTal Reply: The Dravidian languages of South India are a different family from Indo-European. Of course there has been mixing but that is true all over the world.

Some Mongoloid is also in there, too. Many Ural-Altaic people are also Multiracial people, though to a much lesser degree. Many Ural-Altaics are White, some are darker, and others are Mongoloid. The Ural-Altaics actually bridge the gap between the White race and Indo-European and the Multiracial Mongoloids and their creoles. As one crosses from west to east across Eurasia, the people gradually change from White to Mongoloid. The vast peoples of the Ural-Altaic, Mongoloid, South Africans, Islanders, etc., speak creole languages that have all but diverged beyond afiliation with others.

North Africa is another Multiracial people around 2,100 years or more in the making. The ancient North Africans, except for the Greek and Tartessians (who early on migrated up into Spain) peoples who have, ever since Babel, have settled the entire Mediterranean, including the North African coast, were Negroid just like the majority of Central and South Africans are today. Yes, the ancient Egyptians were Negroid, as were the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Sumerians, Hittites, Dravidians, etc. But, ever since the Roman times mainly, North Africa has become increasingly filled with White people (Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Teutons) and Brown people (Arabian Muslims -- mainly a mixture of most of the 26 Semitic tribes). Over the last 2,000 plus years, this has led to mixing of the races that has given North Africa a unique race and culture, though distinct White and Black people still do exist there. North Africa is so mixed between the Hamites and Semites, that their language has converged into the creole of Hamito-Semitic, wheras the Negroes of the other parts of Africa and Australia, etc., speak the diverged Hamitic proper.

Even many Southern Europeans are Multiracial, though to a much lesser extent than North Africa. Southern Europeans are still mainly White.

Much of Latin America (Mexico, South America, and the Carribbean) is also Multiracial. The Whites (mainly Spaniards Portuguese, and French) invaded those areas and many intermarried with the Native Americans and later the Blacks. However, Argentina and Brazil still have large populations of Whites and Blacks and Multiracials or Mongoloids.

KryssTal Reply: Native Americans, eh? They speak over 50 different language families. The Aztec language, Nahuatl is related to north American Comanche. The Inca language Quechua is related to Paraguay's Guarani. Guatemala's Quiche is related to Mexico's Yucateca. All these are distinct peoples yet you refer to them as Native Americans. You don't say "Native Europeans" or "Native Asians".

Because the White race could better adapt to the cooler climates of Europe and Russia, most Japhethites migrated there.

KryssTal Reply: Surely this is the wrong way around. Skin became paler because of a lack of strong sun.

Because the Black race could better adapt to the hotter climates of Africa and other equatorial regions, most Hamites migrated there.

KryssTal Reply: Ditto

Because the Browns were inbetween those extreme light and dark, they pretty much stayed around Mesopotamia and Arabia.

KryssTal Reply: With respect, this is silly.

The Semites were probably the least physically and linguistically altered at Babel since evidence suggests that the pre-Flood and pre-Babel language was a Semitic form of language.

More than ample evidence for the Tower of Babel exists than is currently taught in universities and the media.

KryssTal Reply: I don't think you would enjoy the UK. We do not even allow religious preaching on TV. Not that we have that many chanels! Less than 10% of the British even go to church. Our major TV stations are non commercial so that sponsors have little say over program content. Religion tends to be treated as a cultural aspect. Most programmes (we tend not to call them "shows") are bases on scientific principals. This is a cultural difference between our countries.

Sure, language divergence has taken over since the immediate confusion at Babel, but that don't mean that natural processes were at work forever all the way back to grunting and unga-bunga-ing. Studies show that humans need to be taught language, so who taught the first people? -- God did with Adam and Eve, some 6,000 years ago. After Babel, though, accents and dialects quickly broke off and formed daughter languages and on and on until we have some 7,000 language/dialects today. That Nostratic and Proto-World stuff; there is no evidence for it, but many believe it because they just don't want to accept the Bible, which actually fits the puzzle better than any Evolutionary theories could ever hope to. Shem, Ham, and Japheth have had their names preserved in the peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa for millenia. Japheth = Iapetos, Pra-Japati, Sceaf, and Jupiter; Ham = Amun and Amon. Even Noah is preserved in No as in No-Amon (Noah-Ham) of Egypt. Their 70 offspring's names have also been preserved remarkably in history even to this day. Noah and his three sons were a historical reality, and that they peopled the entire world after the Flood, much evidence verifies this.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for your time and all. Please e-mail me with any comments/questions/etc. Much Abliged -- Billy

KryssTal Reply: I did enjoy this.

Thank you; very useful and informative.

How about adding the Caucasian languages? Chechen, Cherkess, and the like?

KryssTal Reply: When I learn about them I will add them. Thank you for your comments.

Dear Sir:

I've just readed your interesting article The Latin Branch that talk about the Romance Languages, and I'd like to make a comment,the Galician is not a Portuguese dialect with Celtic influences spoken in the north west of Spain, like you have said, the Galician is one of the four languages recognized by the Spanish Gouvernment with the Spanish (castillian), Basque and Catalan.

It has Celtic influences because it's one of the called "seven celtics countries" with Ireland, the French Bretain, and others...

Thank you very much for your time.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments..

Obrigado / Gracias

To whom it may concern:

As an Aramaic or Syriac Assyrian speaking Christian I am very disappointed that you have mentioned the extinction of the Assyrian, Aramaic, and Syriac language. Assyrians are indigenous people of ancient Mesopotamia or Bet-Nahrain (In Syriac). Assyrians speak and write in the Aramaic or Sryiac language. The Syrian Orthodox Church, the Nestorian Church, Assyrian / Chaldean Church, Jacobite Church, use the Syriac liturgy. As you can see the Sryiac language is not extinct. Can you please make that correction as soon as possible.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments.

I know that Syriac is used in liturgy but so is Latin and Koine (New Testimant Greek) and Sanskrit is studied in India. But these languages are not used in everyday speach.

KryssTal Comment: After this email arrived I was spammed by several people all demanding that I change the status of Syriac from extinct.

Dear Sir

I have with just visited interest, your excellent website on languages and linguistics. However, I must point out to you what appear to be two inaccuracies which I feel may be better cleared up on your site to give a more accurate account of the situation, notably regarding the Manx and Cornish languages.

These two languages are in fact NOT extinct at all as you state. Both of them although considered minority languages, are quite alive and healthy in their respective communities. Cornish indeed is spoken by many expatriots in Australia as well. Indeed, I am myself studying both of them so I consider myself qualified to comment on this issue. If you would like more information regarding both Cornish and Manx please contact me again.

KryssTal Reply: Hi there

There seems to be a revival of these languages. Do you have figures of number of speakers?

Kryss,

What a wonderfully clear and concise introduction to language families !!

Thank you for an entertaining and informative read. Whilst at university, I majored in German and Russian studies and took two courses in Historical Linguistics and Comparative Philology. Now I am alternately living in Japan and Turkey (teaching English, would you believe ?) and am interested in the possible ("controversial") Altaic link between these two languages. Thanks again.

Dear Sir, I visited today your website and I found it very interesting (especially for the non-European languages of which I don't know so much).

Let me alow to make a small correction, which - I have that impression - is to be found in a considerable number of Anglo-Saxon writings and websites.

You mention "Flemish" as a language of the Germanic branche. This is however not correct. Dutch is the language of Flanders, the North of Belgium. However, in daily life a considerable number of Flemings are using a dialect form of Dutch (this is also the case in the Netherlands). The main dialects of Flanders are: Brabandian (spoken in the middle of Flanders - main cities Brussels and Antwerp - also spoken in the Dutch province of Northern Brabant), Limburgian (in the East, and also spoken on the other side of the Dutch border) and... Flemish. Flemish dialect is also spoken in a small enclave of the Netherlands and also in the North of France. Flemish is the most archaic Dutch dialect and didn't undergone considerable changes since the middle ages. That's why a Flemish dialect speaker can easily read the old manuscript of that time, especially since the most important dialect of Dutch (which hadn't yet a standard form) was Flemish. This was due to the enormeous political and economic influence of Bruges and Ypres, two cities located in the Flemish dialect area. Today Flemish is spoken by only 25 % of the Flemings, the rest is using Brabandian or Limburgian as their native dialect, apart from to the standard form of Dutch. (By the way, I speak at home Flemish dialect...).

A few other suggestions:

You forgot to mention also a language which have been for so many centuries in the shadow of its big brother, namely "Low Saxon" / "Nedersächsich" (also known by the name of "Low German" / "Niederdeutsch"). This language was a literary and administratif language until the unification of Germany (19th century) in the states of Northern Germany. Only recently the German state has recognized the language again and efforts are made to bring the language (now divided in a considerable number of dialects) to a standard level so that it can be used in administration and schools (they have started alsready with primarcy schools).

Cornish is still alive, although very threatened. Only a few hundred people are able to speak it. However, this language was introduced a few years ago in the "kindergarten" and a few primary schoolbooks were printed in Cornish. Not yet dead....

I didn't see Scots as a Germanic language (Scots isn't a dialect differing from English - there is a special Scots Academy, there are publications and grammatical and lexicograhical works).

For the Romance languages I have observed that a few are missing:

• Friulian (spoken in the North of Italy and by governmental laws protected);

• Aromanian (yes A before the romanian): a language very close to Romanian but distuingish, spoken by the Vlachs (Aromanians) who can be found a little bit shattered in the Balkan. We can found them in Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Croatia. Only in Macedonia and Albania they are protected by special state laws and they have the possibility to follow school in their own language;

• Corsican spoken by 100,000 to 120,000 people living on the island of Corsica.