Historical Development of Indo-European Languages and Writing

Foundations of Language and Writing Systems

Key Terminology in Classical Studies (Glossary)

CIDA:

Chrace death: power

NOMOS:

Treaty, law

ARCH:

Power, rule

ETNOS:

Race, people

DEMOS:

Town, region, people

POLIS:

City, city-state

The Indo-European Language Family

Indo-European languages are believed to be derived from a hypothetically reconstructed language (often referred to as Proto-Indo-European or PIE) spoken by people from the southern Russian steppes, which spread across Europe and Asia. Although there are no written records of PIE, it is reconstructed from the languages derived from it, which fall into several language families.

Major Branches of Indo-European Languages

1. Italic Languages:
   • Latin: The official language of the Roman Empire, from which the Romance languages are derived.
   • Osco: Spoken in Campania.
   • Umbrian: Spoken in Umbria.
2. Hellenic (Greek) Languages: In its evolution, four stages are distinguished:
   • Mycenaean Greek: With written records dating from the fifteenth century BC.
   • Classical Greek: Used until the fourth century BC.
   • Common or Koine Greek: Used throughout the Eastern Mediterranean between the 4th century BC and the 6th century AD.
   • Modern Greek: Derived from the above, with two variations:
     • Demotic: Spoken and literary form.
     • Kathareusa: Cultivated form used by the Church and State.
3. Celtic Languages:
   • Continental Celtic: Now extinct.
   • Insular Celtic: Includes Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, and Breton.
4. Germanic Languages:
   • Nordic Germanic: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.
   • West Germanic:
     • High German (Modern Standard German).
     • Low German (Flemish and Dutch).
     • Anglo-Saxon (English).
   • East Germanic: Gothic (extinct).
5. Indo-Iranian Languages:
   • Old Indian (Vedic Sanskrit).
   • Persian.
6. Balto-Slavic Languages:
   • Baltic: Lithuanian and Latvian.
   • Slavic:
     • West Slavic (Polish, Czech, and Slovak).
     • East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian).
     • South Slavic (Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian).

The Evolution of Writing Systems

Writing, or the system of representing words, had its primitive form in the pictograph, which is the representation of ideas or objects by means of drawings or signs (pictograms).

Further evolution constituted ideograms, which represent words. The system continued to evolve, leading to the appearance of letters (signs that represent sounds). Initially, each sign represented a syllable (syllabary). The final step was the appearance of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted of 22 consonant signs.

The Greek Alphabet and Its Legacy

The Greek alphabet comes directly from the Phoenician alphabet with some modifications, notably the inclusion of vowels. It consists of 24 letters and is the source of all subsequent alphabets used in Europe.