Public Research: Mothertongue (Indo-European Languages)
 

Part of Public Research Project

Since the previous Language Polls (1-2) were general, and since the sheer number of 'Indo-European' entry there is dominant, (and since many of the voters has shown great impatience), I'm coming out with the more detailed survey on the subject

The various subgroups of the Indo-European family include (in historical order of their first attestation):

Anatolian languages — earliest attested branch, from the 18th century BC; extinct, most notable was the language of the Hittites.

Indo-Iranian languages, descending from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian:
-Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, attested from the 2nd millennium BC
-Iranian languages, attested from roughly 1000 BC, including Avestan and Persian
-Dardic languages
-Nuristani languages

Greek language — fragmentary records in Mycenaean from the 14th century BC; Homer dates to the 8th century BC. See Proto-Greek language, History of the Greek language.

Italic languages — including Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages, attested from the 1st millennium BC.

Celtic languages — Gaulish inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Old Irish texts from the 6th century AD, see Proto-Celtic language.

Germanic languages (including English) — earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century, see Proto-Germanic language.

Armenian language — attested from the 5th century.

Tocharian languages — extinct tongues of the Tocharians, extant in two dialects, attested from roughly the 6th century.

Balto-Slavic languages, believed by many Indo-Europeanists to derive from a common proto-language later than Proto-Indo-European, while others are skeptical and think that Baltic and Slavic are no more closely related than any other two branches of Indo-European.
-Slavic languages — attested from the 9th century, earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
-Baltic languages — attested from the 14th century, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European.

Albanian language — attested from the 15th century (1462); relations with Illyrian, Dacian, or Thracian proposed.

Obviously, I would not inquire upon extinct languages. Following the map of our member distributiion (geographically), the whole Indo-Iranian has one entry, whils Balto-Slavic is divided.

Thank you, HI, for pulling this discussion we messily had in your other poll! I've been curious!

My first language was Gujarati, Indo-Aryan and spoken in the Western Indian state of Gujarat. Most emigrants to Britain, the USA and Australia from India were Gujarati.

question for the vertically challenged individual: how many different languages are spoken in India (approx.)? and are they truly independent languages, or dialectal versions of a mother-tongue?

About 18 major languages, it seems, accord to this here link.

While the languages are all based on a common tongue, Sanskrit, they are all independent, not dialects. Sanskrit is often compared to Latin; it's a tongue little used save in religion, and not spoken as a first language any more.

All the languages in India are, I presume, quite similar. When I listen to Hindi, I can make out odd words, so the relationship makes me think of Dutch and German. I cannot speak for the other 16 languages though.

I believe most of them have individual scripts, too. Gujarati does, anyway.