Language tree
About this app
Spatial family tree of the Indo-European languages, with height showing time from Proto-Indo-European to today. Ten basic words travel from the reconstructed root to about 30 languages; the First and Second Sound Shift and the centum/satem split are marked in colour in the forms. A test separates true cognates from chance look-alikes and loanwords.
What links the Indo-European languages
Many languages of Europe and South Asia descend from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but reconstructed from its daughter languages; reconstructed forms carry an asterisk, such as *ph₂tḗr for father. Relationship shows in regular sound correspondences rather than in individual look-alike words. Proto-Indo-European *p became f in Germanic (Latin pater, English father) and *k became h (Latin centum, English hundred). This first sound shift, Grimm’s law, sets Germanic apart from the other branches; the second shift separates High German from Low German, Dutch and English (English apple, German Apfel).
What the app shows
A spatial family tree: the root sits at the bottom, height is time, and modern languages are at the top. Eleven branches are included, from Germanic, Italic and Celtic through Greek, Armenian and Albanian to Indo-Iranian, Baltic, Slavic, Anatolian and Tocharian. Ten basic words such as father, mother, two, hundred and water travel from the reconstructed root to about 30 languages. Three sound laws can be switched on, Grimm’s law, the High German consonant shift and the centum/satem split, each with examples and colour-coded forms. A quiz asks whether word pairs are inherited cognates, chance look-alikes or loanwords.
Things to try
Choose “hundred” and switch on centum/satem: Latin centum and Sanskrit śatám part ways, and Tocharian in the far east sits on the centum side. With “father” and Grimm’s law you see p → f across the Germanic branch. In the quiz, try English bad and Persian bad: same sound, same meaning, no common origin. The dates at the nodes are rough guides, and the tree simplifies sideways influence between languages.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Proto-Indo-European?
- Proto-Indo-European is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, which include the Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Greek and Indo-Iranian languages. It is not attested in writing and is reconstructed from regular correspondences between its daughter languages. It was probably spoken some time in the 5th to 3rd millennium BC; both date and homeland are disputed.
- What is Grimm’s law?
- Grimm’s law, the first Germanic sound shift, is a regular sound change that sets Germanic apart from the other Indo-European branches. Among other changes, *p, *t, *k became f, þ, h, *d became t and *bʰ became b. That is why Latin pater matches English father, decem matches ten and cornu matches horn.
- What are centum and satem languages?
- The division is based on how the Proto-Indo-European sound *ḱ developed. In centum languages such as Latin, Greek and Germanic it became k (or h), in satem languages such as Sanskrit, Avestan, Slavic and Baltic it became a sibilant. Tocharian in the east is a centum language, so the split is not a simple east-west boundary.
- How can you tell whether two words are related?
- What counts is regular sound correspondence, not mere similarity. English bad and Persian bad sound the same and mean the same but have no common origin, while German Fenster resembles Latin fenestra because it was borrowed. The quiz in the app practises exactly this distinction between inherited word, coincidence and loanword.
Subject: Linguistics & phonetics
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