Information about the Indo-European languages

Where are the Indo-European languages spoken?

The majority (approximately ¾) of the countries of the world have an Indo-European language as the sole or official language.

This phenomenon is due either to the Indo-European language being the indigenous language of the country or to the “legacy” of colonialism. The first scenario covers all but 6 European countries (Hungary, Finland, Estonia, Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan), and parts of Asia: Iran, Afghanistan, India (except the southern states where Dravidian languages are spoken), Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The second scenario covers sub-Saharan Africa, the entire American continent, and much of Oceania.

Thus the Indo-European languages have approximately 3 billion speakers making it the language family with the largest number of speakers in the world.

Languages or language variants in the Indo-European domain

In many European countries and the Indian subcontinent there is a delicate question which should be linguistic, but often drifts into the political arena: what is the status of forms of speech close to the official language?

Around the world, languages evolve and often diverge if the territories where they are spoken are large enough and if the contacts between different areas within these territories are isolated. Thus, over the centuries, language dialects are born (“they don’t speak like us, but we understand them”), and then with increasing historical separation mutual understanding is lost and peoples come to speak different languages of the same language family (“we don’t understand them, they speak another language”): thus Latin has evolved into French, Spanish, Italian, etc..

In the absence of a more or less centralized nation-state, dialect diversification is the rule. But when a nation-state is formed, it typically establishes an official language (and sometimes several), most often on the basis of one (or sometimes more) of the dialects spoken in its territory. Examples would include the dialects of Ile de France and the Loire Valley for French, the Tuscan dialect for Italian, and the Castilian dialect for Spanish. Compared to this official language, which becomes an obligatory point of reference for all inhabitants, other unofficial forms of speech are then easily identified. If the alternative form of speech is significantly different (e.g. in France: Basque and Breton) one can always say it is a different language, but if the alternative form of speech is very similar (e.g. in France: Picard, “Chtimi”, Gallo or Morvandiau) it may be considered to be simply a dialect variant of the same language.

In general, linguists tend to avoid a proliferation of languages. For example, most of them say that Gallo-Roman (that is to say: the result of the evolution of Latin in the greater part of what was once Gaul) is divided into three groups of dialects: the language d’Oïl, the language d’Oc (or Occitan) and Francoprovençal (or Arpitan). In this context, Picard, Walloon or Gallo of Brittany are dialects of the language d’Oïl (rather than dialects of French which is also a dialect of the language d’Oïl, but a dialect that has “succeeded”). But many activists on the ground, and even some linguists, argue for the autonomy of each type of speech and will talk of the languages d’Oïl, the Occitan languages, etc. Here we do not enter into these debates.

Nonetheless, we can still identify a number of potential cases with historical antecedents which illustrate the range of possible policies:

If two very similar dialects, even mutually comprehensible, are spoken in different countries, the most common tendency is to proclaim them to be different languages. This is what has happened with Norwegian in relation to Danish, Macedonian in relation to Bulgarian, Slovak in relation to Czech, and more recently Croatian in relation to Serbian (which are linguistically considered to be a single language). In the same vein, Afrikaans (which is a variant of Dutch from a linguistic point of view) is an official language of a sovereign state, South Africa. In this case, it is a variant that has been “normalized” and “formalized”. The opposite situation occurs in Belgium where Dutch and French are the official languages rather than Flemish and Walloon.

In some cases, the opposite strategy is adopted: as an official language an exogenous variant is selected and the local dialects are regarded as dialect variations. This is the policy chosen by German-speaking Switzerland which has German as its official language, but where widely spoken dialects of German are united under the name of Schwytzertütsch.

On the other hand, when a variant of a language is spoken on the territory of a country with another official language, there is a strong tendency to baptize it as a regional language of the country where it is spoken. This is the case in France with Alsatian and Lorraine Platt (which from a linguistic point of view are German dialects), with West Flemish (a Dutch dialect), and with Corsican (an Italian dialect). This trend is consistent with criteria of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages adopted by the Council of Europe in 1992. But at the time of the Revolution, for example, Alsace was considered to speak German, and Corsica to speak Italian. Writing is an area where the trend towards linguistic unity or autonomy is often best observed. For example, in Alsace written German is most often “standard” German (writing in Alsatian is more rare and newer), while Corsica has long adopted a written form which respects its special relationship to Italian to which it is linguistically very close.

Classification

Note: the languages and dialects are set in bold print and the main dialects are set in italics

Download the Indo-european languages tree (in French)

Italic Languages

Osco-Umbrian (extinct branch)

Romance Languages (Latin)

Gallo-Romance

Standard French and “Langues d’Oïl”

• Standard French

• Picard, Gallo, Normand, Burgundian, Poitou-saintongeais, Lorraine, Wallon, Franc-Comtois …

Occitan or “Langue d’Oc”

• Languedocian, Provencal

• Limousin, Auvergne, Vivaro-Alpine

• Gascon, Aranese

Catalan

• Western Catalan: North-Western Catalan, Valencian lleidatan

• Eastern Catalan: Roussillon, Central Catalan, Balearic, Alguerian.

Franco-Provençal or Arpitan

• Lyonnais, Velayen, Bressan

• Savoyard, Valle d’Aosta

• Valais, Vaud, Jura

Gallo-Italic

Gallo-Italian languages

• Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria, Emilia-Romagna.

Ibero-Romance

Spanish

• Castilian (Standard Spanish), Andalusian

• Asturian, Leone

• Aragon

Portuguese

• Standard Portuguese

• Galician

Italo-Romance

Italian

• Standard Italian (Tuscan) and vernacular Tuscan

• Napolitan, Sicilian, Campanian, Calabrian, Corsican …

• Venetian

Sardinian

Sardinian

Rhaeto-Romance

Romansch

Friulian

Ladin

Daco Roman

Romanian

Aromanian

Celtic Languages

Goidelic

Scottish Gaelic

Irish

Manx (revitalizing)

Britonnic

Welsh

Cornish (in revitalization)

Breton

• Leonard, Tregorrois, Cornish

• Vannes

Germanic Languages

Old Norse or Scandinavian Languages

Icelandic-Faroese

Icelandic

Faroese

Swedish-Norwegian-Danish

Swedish

Norwegian

Danish

Scanian

Old High German

German

• Standard German

• Middle German: Franconian Rhine, Franconian Moselan, luxemburgish, thuriengian platt, platt Hesse, ripuarian …

• High German: Alemannic Alsatian, Swiss German (or schwytzertütsch), Austro-Bavarian.

Yiddish

Old Low German

Low German and East Central

• Low Franconian, Low Saxon, Low East German

Dutch

• Standard Dutch

• Flemish …

Afrikaans (derived from Dutch)

Anglo-Frisian

English

• Standard English

• Scots

Frisian

Hellenic Languages

Modern Greek

Tsakonian

Balto-Slavic languages

Baltic Languages

Latvian

Lithuanian

East Slavic

Belarusian

Ukrainian

Russian

South Slavic

Slovenian

Serbo-Croatian

• iékavien, ékavien

• tchékavien, kachkavien

Bulgarian-Macedonian

• Standard Bulgarian

• Standard Macedonian

West Slavic

Polish

• Silesian

Czech-Slovak

Czech

Slovak

Sorbian

Kashubian

Albanian

Modern Albanian

• Gheg, Tosk

Armenian

Modern Armenian

• Western Armenian, Eastern Armenian

Indo-Iranian languages

Iranian Branch

Southern Group

Pashto

Waziri

Sarikol

Yidgha

Shughni

Yazgulami

Northern Group

Ossetic

Yaghnobi

Southwest Group (Old Persian)

Persian or Farsi

Tajik

Hazaragi

Tat

Juhuru

Luri

Bakhtiari

Kumzar

Northwest Group

Dilam

Gilaki

Mazanderan

Talysh

Kurdish

Baluchi

Gorani

Zaza

Indo-Aryan branch

Maharashtra Group

Sinhala

Dhivehi

Marathi

Konkani

Pali

Maghada Group

Halbi

Oriya

Assamese

Chittagonian

Bengali

Bihari Group

Magahi

Maithili

Bhojpuri

Northwest Group

Sindhi

Potwar

Doghri

Lahnda

Punjabi

Dardic Group

Nuristani

Pashayi

Shina

Kashmiri

Bihari

Pahari Group

Nepali

Palpa

Kumaon

Garhwali

Hindustani Group

Hindi

Haryana

Urdu

Deccani

Central Group

Romani

Which Indo-European languages are in danger?

The Italic languages:

Many variants of the Languages d’Oïl are in danger as well as all of the dialects of Occitan and Franco-Provençal. Most dialects of Italian-Roman, outside Standard Italian, are threatened.

All Celtic languages are in danger with the possible exception of Welsh. Manx (extinct in the 70s) and Cornish (extinct in the 18th century) are being revitalized and now have a handful of young bilingual native speakers.

Germanic languages:

The Frankish dialects, Yiddish and Low German dialects are also in danger (with the exception of schwytzertütsch). Faroyen , the Frisian dialects, and the Scots dialect are also in danger.

The Hellenic languages:

Tsakonian is “critically endangered” according to UNESCO criteria and could become extinct.

The Balto-Slavic languages:

Sorbian and kachoubien are in danger.

Indo-Iranian Languages:

For the Iranian branch, languages threatened or endangered according to UNESCO include: Sarikol, Shughni, Yidgha, Yaghnobi, Talysh, Gorani, Yazgulami, Tat, and Kumzari with the last three being the most threatened.

For the Indo-Aryan branch, UNESCO recognizes the following languages as threatened or endangered: Nuristani, Pashayi, Garhwali, and Kumaoni.