Language families


              
COMPARATIVE LIST 1 - GERMANIC

          ENGLISH   DUTCH     GERMAN    SWEDISH   ICELANDIC

          one       een       ein       en        einn
     
          two       twee      zwei      tva       tveir

          brother   broeder   bruder    brader    broir

          night     nacht     nacht     natt      natt

          widow     weduwe    wittwe

          honey     honig     honig     honing    hunang

          mead      mede      meth      mjod      myor



            
COMPARATIVE LIST 2 - INDO-EUROPEAN

ENGLISH   LATIN     IRISH     GREEK     SANSKRIT  RUSSIAN   TIBETAN

one       oino      aon       oine      eka       odin      gcig

two       duo       da        duo       dva       dva       gnyis

brother   frater    brathair  phrater   bhrata    brat      *

night     noct-     nochd     nukt-     nakta     noşe      nam

bear      fero      berid     phero     bharami   beryot    'kyer
  ('carry')

red       ruber     ruath     erathros  rudhiras  ruda 'blood' dmar

foot      ped-                pod-      pad       peşkom    rkangpa

widow     vidua     feadhb    ephitheos vidhava   vdova     yugsamo

honey               mid       meşu      madhu     med       sbrang-
                                                            rtsi 

*spun 'sibling', jobo 'elder brother', nubo 'younger brother'

                 
MORPHOLOGICAL COMPARISON

               1sg            2sg                 3sg

     English   bear           bearest             beareth

     Greek     phero          phereis             pher-ti

     Latin     fero           feres               feret

     Irish     biru           biri                berid

     Russian   beryu          beryoş              beryot

     Sanskrit  bharami        bharasi             bharati


                     
Important terms

a language family is a group of genetically related 
languages. Languages are genetically related if they descend from a common
ancestor.  For example, French, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, and
Rumanian are all descended from Latin, therefore they are related.

German, Dutch, English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish
are all descended from a common ancestor.  Their common ancestor
was not a written language, so we have no direct evidence for it. 
But we know it must have existed, because there is no other way to
explain the similarities among the modern languages.  An ancestral
language which has to be inferred by comparing modern languages is
called a proto-language; we refer to the common ancestor of these
languages as Proto-Germanic.

A language, or sometimes a very small group of very closely-related
languages, which does not seem to be related to any other language
is called an isolate.  Basque, spoken in northern Spain and
southern France, is a well-known example of an isolate.  Quileute
and Chemakum, two closely-related languages of Washington State,
constitute a small family (called Chemakuan) which can be
considered an isolate since it doesn't seem to be related to
anything else.