Lang families

Handout 2
Answer the following questions with short answers. You will find the information in the text below.

Which branch of Germanic language family does English belong to?
Do Catalan and Sardinian belong to the same language family?
Is Irish a Germanic language?
What is the origin of Basque?
Is Estonian an Indo-European language?
How many members does the Caucasian language family have?
Which writing system do most European languages use? ò

2	Language families from: http://www.ecml.at/edl/default.asp?t=celebration
A	Languages are related to each other like the members of a family. Most of the languages of Europe can be grouped together, because of their common origins, as a single, large Indo-European language family. The families in Europe with the most member-languages and the most speakers are the Germanic, Romance, and Slavic.
B	The Germanic language family has a northern branch with Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic and Faeroese, as well as a western branch with German, Dutch, Frisian, English and Yiddish as its members. The Romance language family has as its members Romanian, Italian, Corsican, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, French, Romansh, Ladin and Sardinian. To the Slavic language family belong languages such as Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Sorbian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian. Within the Celtic family are Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton, with revival movements under way for Cornish and Manx. To the Baltic family belong Latvian and Lithuanian. Separate families with only one member are Greek, Albanian and Armenian. Basque is an exceptional case, because it does not belong to the Indo-European family and its origins are unknown.
C	Other language families also have members in Europe. In the North we find the Uralic languages: Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, several Sámi languages, as well as other small languages in the northern parts of the Russian Federation such as Ingrian or Karelian. In the Southeast we find representatives of the Altaic language family, notably Turkish and Azerbaijani. The Caucasian family is spoken in a relatively small and compact area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and comprises also about 40 members, among them Georgian, and Abkhaz. The Afro-Asiatic family includes Maltese, Hebrew and Berber.
D	All these languages use a small number of alphabetic scripts. Most languages use the Roman (or Latin) alphabet. Russian and some other Slavic languages use Cyrillic. Greek, Yiddish, Armenian and Georgian each have their own script. Non-European languages widely used on European territory include Arabic, Chinese and Hindi, each with its own writing system.

Ladin=A dialect of Romansh spoken in Engadine between Saint Moritz and the Austrian border
Romansh=The Rhaeto-Romance dialect that is an official language of Switzerland. Also called Ladin.
Manx=relating to the Isle of Man or its people, language, or culture.
Sámi , Ingrian, Karelian languages=Finnic languages
(source: Dictionary.com)