Language Families of the World

Professor John McWhorter takes a look at the concept of language families, how languages change over time and what linguistics can teach humans about their own history.

While the Indo-European family of languages is not the first group to be identified as related, it is the family that receives much of the research and classification that becomes the basis of modern linguistics; what defines Indo-European languages.

Diving into the earliest roots of Indo-European languages with a look at Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, Greek, Albanian and Celtic languages; how Indo-European languages contradict common notions about language; mysteries yet to be solved.

Tracing back to the branching of the Indo-European tree, when the European languages split from the Indo-Aryan varieties; exploring many variations that evolve; why it can be so difficult to differentiate between a language and a dialect.

Focusing on the "click" languages, some of the most endangered languages in the world; these endangered languages share a distinctive profile, yet likely do not all come from a single family; exploring where they may have begun; how they work.

The Niger-Congo family of languages does not adhere to an identified pattern; what links this immense family together; what the essence of the Niger-Congo is; what these languages say about migration patterns; exploring these questions and more.