5.2 Flashcards
germanic branch
similar to english, both belong to west germanic group of germanic language branch of indo-european family
west germanic divided into high + low germanic (elevation within germany)
high = southern mountains of germany, basis for german
low = english, dutch
also includes north germanic (scandinavia, derived from old norse)
indo-iranian
most speakers, 100+ individual languages
divided into eastern group (indic) + western group (iranian)
hindi
national language 19th century when british encouraged government use
india = independent state 1947, proposed as official language but others objected -> english = secondary official language
spoken many different ways, writes using devanagari since 7th century ad
urdu is like hindi but writes w/arabic alphabet bc muslim
iranian (western) group
iran + neighboring countries in central asia
major = persian (iran), pashto (eastern afghanistan + western pakistan), + kutdish (kurds of western iran, northern iraq( + eastern turkey)
written w/arabic alphabet
east slavic and baltic groups
most widely used
primarily russian, increased w/soviet union rise to power after end of ww2 1945
also ukrainian and belarusan
west and south slavic groups
most spoken west = polish, then czech and slovak
more czech than slovak, gov. tried to balance, promoted national unity during communist era, four years after fall of communism slovakia split from czech republic bc resentment
most spoken south = in bosnia & herzegovina, croatia,
montenegro, and serbia
called serbo-croatian when all part of yugoslavia, now offends bosnians and crotians bc reminds being dominated by serbs
bosnians + croatians use roman alphabet,
montenegrans + serbs use cyrillic alphabet
bosnian use arabic words, croats use “purely croatian words” instead of w/serbian origin
romance branch
most used: spanish, portuguese, french, and italian, separated by mountains
also romanian (romania + moldova), romansh (switzerland), and catalán (andorra + eastern spain)
