Indo-European Languages across Europe and Asia - Essay Example

The people who speak the Indo-European languages are called Indo-Europeans and their languages are significant across the globe. Theories about Indo-Europeans are further important to understand the languages that are spoken in the world today and this paper discusses the theories’ significance.

One of the theories about Indo-European languages that help in understanding contemporary languages is their disproportional significance. The disproportional nature of their significance is that they have dominated largely than would be expected of their number. This is because the languages are merely less than 30 percent of the total number of languages in the world but they dominate over the remaining majority of languages (Diamond 249). The theory of disproportionate significance explains the current trend in languages in which non-Indo-European speakers are assimilating Indo-European languages.

Loss of linguistic diversity is the consequence because people are forsaking their native languages into the Indo-European languages, a wave that began towards the end of the 15th century. The theory of the disproportionate significance of the Indo-European language is also significant from the fact that it withstood possible influence from other languages that existed in Europe such as Finish and Assyrian. These other languages, despite having existed in the region, failed to influence languages in Europe and other regions as the Indo-European languages did. The theory of the disproportionate significance of Indo-European languages, therefore, explains the languages’ spread to become native languages for other people across the world (Diamond 252).

Another theory about Indo-European languages that helps understand contemporary languages is the theory that the Indo-European languages substituted other languages that then ceased to exist. This theory explains the spread of the Indo-European theories and supports the disproportionate theory. Not only did the Indo-European theories spread to other regions but also they replaced native languages in those regions. New generations, therefore, grew with the knowledge that an Indo-European language that they have been exposed to is their native language. This theory further explains the use of Indo-European languages as official languages in some regions, instead of the region’s native languages (Diamond 253- 255).

The continued existence of native Europeans and racial diversity that exist in contemporary Europe are other theories on Indo-European languages that explain the present languages in the world. Preservation of the European race or races implies the preservation of culture and language. The existence of other genes, that do not match the genes of ancient Europeans, shows the influence that the native Europeans, and their languages, have had on immigrants to the region. This then supports the other theories of the disproportionate significance of the Indo-European languages (Sykes 169- 184).

Indo-European languages are a set of languages, belonging to native Europeans, which share certain characteristics that distinguish them from other languages. Read More