Languages

Question 1

What are the top 8 largest language families according to Ethnologue?

Answer 1

Niger-Congo (20.6%)
Austronesian (16.8%)
Trans-New Guinea (6.4%)
Sino-Tibetan (6.1%)
Indo-European (5.9%)
Australian (5.1%
Afro-Asiatic (5%)
Nilo-Saharan (2.7%)

Question 2

What are the most widely spoken Indo-European languages by native speakers?

Answer 2

Spanish, English, Hindi and Urdu, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, and Persian.

Question 3

What percent of the human population speaks an Indo-European language natively?

Answer 3

46%, by far the highest of any language family

Question 4

All Indo-European languages are descendants of what single prehistoric language?

Answer 4

Proto-indo-european, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era

Question 5

What are the ten major branches of Indo-European languages, in chronological order of emergence?

Answer 5

Anatolian (Asia Minor)
Tocharian
Germanic
Italic
Celtic
Armenian
Balto-Slavic
Hellenic
Indo-Iranian
Albanian

Question 6

The West Germanic branch includes…

Answer 6

English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish

Question 7

The main North Germanic languages are…

Answer 7

Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Foroese

Question 8

The East Germanic branch included…

Answer 8

Gothic, Burgundian, Vandalic, all of which are now extinct.

Question 9

What’s the common ancestor of all germanic languages?

Answer 9

hypothetical Proto-germanic aka Common Germanic

Question 10

When and where was Proto-Germanic spoken?

Answer 10

The Middle-1st millenium BC in Iron Age Scandinavia

Question 11

What’s the oldest Germanic writing?

Answer 11

Vimone inscriptions AD 160,

Question 12

Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of __________, the common language of the germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.

Answer 12

Old Norse

Question 13

What’s the largest of the North Germanic languages by number of speakers?

Answer 13

Swedish