IndoEuropean

It turns out that most of the major language families are related into one superfamily, referred to as Indo-European. They are associated with various groups of migrants that appeared around the beginning of the BronzeAge. Huge amounts of information about ProtoIndoEuropean (PIE) lexicon and grammar have been inferred. Discussion about actual proto-IE culture has been stalled, though, by its association with the racist doctrines of German NationalSocialism.

The various subgroups of Indo-European include:

• IndoIranianLanguages
• ItalicLanguages (including Latin and its descendants, the RomanceLanguages)
• GermanicLanguages
• CelticLanguages
• BalticLanguages
• SlavicLanguages
• IllyrianLanguages (AlbanianLanguage and extinct cousins)
• AnatolianLanguages (extinct, most notable was the language of the HittitePeoples)
• TocharianLanguages (extinct tongues of TocharianPeoples)
• GreekLanguage
• ArmenianLanguage

These are all InflectedLanguages unlike, say, ChineseLanguages. Some work indicates they may belong to a hypothetical language superfamily called the NostraticLanguages. For those interested in such things, the original sounds appear to be

p t ky k kw Voiceless stops

b d gy g gw Voiced stops

bh dh ghy gh ghw Voiced aspirated stops

s z H1 H2 H3 Spirants, laryngeals (quality unknown)

r l y w m n Semi-vowels, nasals (all can be vocalic)

a e i o u Short vowels

a^ e^ i^ o^? u^? Long vowels