English as an Indo-European Language

As we have mentioned, English is a member of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. The relationships between English and other Germanic languages developed as a result of the settlement of Great Britain by tribes of Germanic origin. The Anglos, Saxons, and Jutes moved from what is today northwestern Germany and Denmark to the British Isles during the early Middle Ages. The newcomers soon outnumbered the indigenous Celtic-speaking inhabitants of the islands. Old English became the standard language of the Anglo-Saxon rulers and soon diffused to the bulk of the population.

Although English is a Germanic language, a considerable part of its vocabulary is derived from the Romance branch of the Indo-European family. The close connection between English and the Romance languages derives from the medieval history of England. The Norman Conquest of 1066 marked the arrival of a French-speaking ruling class. The Normans made French the official language of the English court, and it remained so until 1362.

During the three centuries in which French was the official language of the country, numerous French words were introduced into English vocabulary. Today, about one-third of all English words are of French origin. Many concepts are represented in English vocabulary by synonyms of Germanic and Romance origin. For example, the word royal originated from the French word roi, meaning “king”. The word kingly, on the other hand, comes from the German konig.

The Origin of the Indo-European Languages.The ancestral languages from which modern languageswithin families have descended are known as protolanguages. Scholars refer to the ancestor of modern Indo-European languages as Proto-Indo-European. What wasProto-Indo-European like, and where was it spoken?

In trying to understand Proto-Indo-European, scholars recognized that words common to a large number of today's Indo-European languages are likely to have derived from Proto-Indo-European. In order to locate where Proto-Indo-European was spoken, particular attention was paid to words associated with the physical and biological environment. Words that describe objects familiar to people living in the area where Proto-Indo-European was spoken would likely be similar in many different Indo-European languages. By contrast, those that describe objects not found in the place of origin would likely differ substantially among the modern Indo-European languages.

The names of many common plants and animals found in temperate four-season climates are common to many Indo-European languages. These include oak. beech, bear. wolf, horse, deer, mouse, and bee. By contrast, words for camel, elephant, rice, olive, and other plants and animals not native to continental Europe differ widely from one Indo-European language to another.

These considerations suggest that Proto-Indo-European was probably spoken in an inland continental environment with distinct seasons. Some maintain that the Indo-European languages originated in what is now eastern Europe and the western and southern portions of the Soviet Union. This belief is corroborated by the fact that the contemporary languages believed to be most similar to the Proto-Indo-European are Lithuanian and Latvian, which are spoken on the shores of the Baltic Sea in north- eastern Europe.

The Location and Diffusion of Proto-Indo-European Linguistic Analysis. This suggests that the original area inhabited by speakers of the ancestral Indo-European languages was located in northeastern Europe. Languages derived from that ancestral language are spoken today throughout Europe, western Asia, the Americas and many other parts of the world

Other researchers dispute the claim that Proto-Indo-European originated in eastern Europe. These scientists have pointed out that many common words among the various Indo-European languages represent objects associated with mountainous terrain. These observations led them to conclude that speakers of Proto-Indo-European lived in a mountainous environment rather than in the plains of northeastern Europe. Moreover, some words in Proto-Indo-European may have been borrowed from cultures in Southwest Asia. This suggests that speakers of Proto-Indo-European lived in an area where close contacts with Southwest Asia could be maintained. For example, our word wine appears related to the Semitic word wanju or the Egyptian wans. On the basis of this evidence, it is argued that Proto-Indo-European originated in Turkey rather than in the Baltic countries.

Research concerning the geographic origin of Indo-European languages has stimulated some researchers to consider the origin and diffusion of language over the entire course of human history. Some scientists believe that all of the world's languages may be derived from the language spoken by a tiny population in Africa as early as 200,000 years ago.