These are only a few of the worldwide languages and their origins. Of the 6,500 languages spoken today, about one in twenty has a written form.

INDO-EUROPEAN was the root language that gave rise to nine others. These are Indian, Iranian, Armenian, Albanian, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Hellenic, Italic and Keltic.

3. The Indian language evolved into Sanskrit.

4. The Iranian evolved into two subdivisions:

1. Avesta
2. Old Persian
1. Persian

5. Balto-Slavic:

1. Old Slavic
1. Russian
2. Polish
2. Baltic
1. Lithuanian*
2. Lettish

6. Hellenic:

1. Greek

7. Keltic:

1. Irish
2. Welsh
3. Gaelic

8. Italic:

1. Latin:
1. French
2. Italian
3. Spanish
4. Portuguese

9. Germanic:

1. North German
1. East Norse
1. Swedish
2. Danish
2. West Norse
1. Norwegian
2. Icelandic
2. East German
1. Gothic
3. West Germanic
1. High German
1. German
2. Low German**

**Low German evolved into:

1. Old Frisian
1. Frisian
2. Old Saxon
1. Plattdeutsch
3. Low Franconian
1. Dutch
4. Old English
1. Middle English
1. Modern English

*Lithuanian is the modern language most closely resembling the ancient Indo-European.

SEMATIC-HAMITO originated around Southwestern Asia and the Northern half of the African Continent.  It is generally regarded as having five branches: Berber, Cushitic, Chadic, Egyptian and Semitic.

The Berber language developed any number of dialects and borrowed extensively from Arabic, Punic, and Latin, as well as other Sub-Saharan languages.

Cushitic was mainly spoken in Eastern Ethiopia, Eastern Kenya and Somali.  It was overshadowed in Somali by Arabic and its written form is expressed in the Arabic alphabet.

Chadic had some 150 languages but Hausa is the most prevalent and the only one with a written form.

The Egyptian branch retained its essential characteristics through its Ancient Stage, Middle and Late Stages with its fair share of dialects.  Its only offshoot was Coptic, a language still used in the Egyptian Christian Church.

The Semitic branch includes Hebrew, and its subdivisions, Old Aramaic and Aramaic.  Other Semitic languages are Arabic, Assyrian, Babylonian, Phoenician, Punic, Canaanite and Ugaritic.

BANTU is the parent of the Sub-Saharan languages in Africa.  There are between 800 and 1000 tongues interrelated in the unity of the Bantu languages.

SINO-TIBETAN is the world’s second largest classification of languages after Indo-European.  Over 300 with numerous primary dialects, it embraces Chinese, Tibetan and Burmese.

 AUSTRO-ASIATIC languages encompass most of Eastern India and Southeast Asia with the exception of Thailand.

TAI is a category of languages spoken in Thailand (Siamese), Laos and parts of Vietnam, northeastern India and even southwestern China.

Then there are the PALEO-SIBERIAN, CAUCASIAN, DRAVDIAN, KOREAN, PAPUAN, JAPANESE, AUSTRONESIAN, AUSTRALIAN and ABORIGINAL.

The Austronesian languages of the Pacific are interesting in that they encompass all of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and as far East into the Indian Ocean as Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa!   This illustrates how far those people explored in their little boats over vast oceans with incredible navigational skills.

The languages of NORTH and SOUTH AMERICA stretch from the Eskimo-Aleuts of Alaska to the Macro-Pano-Tacanan of Argentina.

The oldest written language in history that we know of is Sumerian.  It existed in Mesopotamia about 3100 BC and continued for over a thousand years.  It began as pictographs and then graduated to hieroglyphics or ideographs, thought-pictures.  The next step was to syllabaries, symbols denoting syllables.  The final step was to letters forming an alphabet.  Sumerian was replaced by the Semitic Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) but was in use until the beginning of the Christian Era.

The Phoenicians are sometimes credited with inventing written language.  Probably not.  To the dismay of scholars, writing did not begin with literature.  It began with trade, a bill of sale, if you will.  Because of their network of trade, the Phoenicians were the ones who spread writing throughout the Mediterranean.

So here we are now with language ever changing and evolving, new words coming into usage and many others becoming obsolete.

My husband is fluent in French from a French Canadian background.  My fractured French, learned in college and from him, has a decided American accent.  In many parts of the world where we have used it, my husband’s French Canadian accent was spotted immediately but understood, with one exception.  In Louisiana the Cajun French is so different that mutual communication was unintelligible except for a few words.

Here in Hawaii, Pidgin is widely spoken.  It is a lingua franca, a combination of words borrowed from Hawaiian, English, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Filipino and any number of other languages brought to these beautiful islands.  Pidgin works!  We all understand each other and get along famously!