A Guide to European Language Families and Phonetics

European Language Families

Slavic Languages

South Slavic:

• Slovenian
• Croatian
• Bosnian
• Serbian
• Bulgarian
• Macedonian
• Old Church Slavonic (Extinct)

Note: These languages were formerly grouped under Yugoslavia. Montenegrin is a sub-national variety.

East Slavic:

• Russian
• Belarusian
• Ukrainian
• Rusyn

Note: Rusyn and Ruthenian are considered sub-national varieties. The terms "Great Russian" and "Little Russian" (referring to Ukrainian) are extinct and considered offensive, as they imply Ukrainian language subordination.

West Slavic:

• Polish
• Czech
• Slovak
• Sorbian
• Kashubian
• Polabian (Extinct)

Note: Kashubian and Lachian are considered sub-national varieties. Slovincian is another extinct West Slavic language.

Germanic Languages

East Germanic:

• Gothic (Extinct)

North Germanic:

• Danish
• Swedish
• Norwegian
• Icelandic
• Faroese

West Germanic:

• English
• Frisian
• Dutch
• Afrikaans
• German
• Yiddish
• Wymysorys

Other Branches of Indo-European Languages in Europe

• Baltic (East): Lithuanian, Latvian
• Baltic (West): Old Prussian (Extinct)
• Celtic (Brythonic): Welsh, Breton, Cornish
• Celtic (Goidelic): Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx
• Italic: Latin
• Italic (Romance): Italian, Sicilian, Catalan, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese, French, Romansch, Corsican, Sardinian, Romanian
• Greek
• Albanian
• Armenian
• Romani (Indo-Aryan branch)

Non-Indo-European Languages in Europe

• Uralic: Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Saami, Hungarian
• Turkic: Turkish, Tatar
• Afro-Asiatic: Maltese
• Other (Isolate): Basque

Linguistic Terms

• Language Family: A group of languages that can be proven to have descended from a common ancestor (parent) language, e.g., Indo-European.
• Groupings within a Family: Language divisions or branches, e.g., Germanic.
• Language Isolate: A language with questionable classification, often due to the death of sister languages, as in the case of Basque.

Phonetic Charts

Polish Consonants

English Consonants