How do you say...?
Despite being spoken all around the world today, Indo-European languages were mainly concentrated in Europe, and South, Central and Southwest Asia before the 15th century. These days, Indo-European languages are spoken as a mother tongue by an estimated three billion people across the globe, the largest number for any recognised language family. While we're probably all familiar with the major Indo-European languages like Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, German, French, Italian, Punjabi and Urdu, the leading languages in terms of numbers of native speakers, there's some other fascinating inclusions in this linguistic family that deserve a bit of attention.
So here's the low-down on the Indo-European linguistic phylum, bound to impress your friends and certain to bring you glory at any upcoming university pub trivia quiz night. You're no doubt already savvy with the subdivisions like Germanic, which contains languages like English, German and Swedish; Italic, which consists of the Romance languages derived from Latin and several extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula; Celtic, featuring Irish and Welsh; and Balto-Slavic, which includes languages such as Russian and Lithuanian. Indo-European languages also include extinct branches spoken in Asian Minor and Central Asia, such as Anatolian and Tocharian.
The easternmost branch of the Indo-European family that exists to the present-day in the Indo-Iranian subdivision, which in turn consists of the three groups of Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani. With more than one billion native speakers in total, the contemporary Indo-Iranian languages form the largest sub-branch of Indo-European, spanning from Romani in Europe and Ossetian in the Caucasus to Sarikoli in Xinjiang and Bengali in Bangladesh. Students of history will be familiar with the spread of Indo-Iranian languages throughout the ancient world, and in particular throughout Eastern Europe up until the eighth century AD thanks to the Scythians.
Speaking of all things ancient, the Hellenic subdivision contains only Greek according to most traditional classifications, as it's often argued that the ancient languages which might have been most closely related to it are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison.
Other languages that constitute their own independent branch include Albanian and Armenian. Albanian was demonstrated to be an Indo-European language in 1854 by the philologist Franz Bopp, and despite being generally linked with Germanic and Balto-Slavic branches some linguists maintain that the language has closer ties with Greek and Armenian.
Armenian, similarly classified as an independent branch within the family, shares major isoglosses with Greek prompting some linguists to propose an identical or close contact relation between the linguistic ancestors of the two languages. Like with many Indo-Iranian languages, Armenian was a popular study option for young aristocrats, aspiring writers and Oriental scholars in the 18th and 19th centuries. These days, if you're looking to learn a language it's popular to take English courses in London or to pursue language studies throughout Europe, Asia or South America. A lot of appeal for studying languages abroad centres around immersing oneself in the country and culture, and this is especially enjoyable when learning Spanish, Italian or even Russian. Back in the early 19th century however, San Lazzaro degli Armeni (Saint Lazarus Island) in the Venetian Lagoon of northern Italy was an equally exotic destination. Lord Bryon, for instance, the famed British Romantic poet, opted to learn Armenian there, as the island was one of the world's foremost centres of Armenian culture. Instead of taking French courses in France, he interestingly enough preferred to acquaint himself with Armenian culture and language under the tuition of the abbots of the Mekhitarist Order.
For language students, there are a myriad of language options out there to pursue. By choosing to study French in France or Spanish in Spain, you're provided with the opportunity to immerse yourself in the language, not to mention the country and the culture, and all this entails. Additionally, there are many reasons for studying a language ranging from a love of the national cuisine, a inkling for the grammatical intricacies, or even an ancestral link. More often than not, it's for more concrete reasons like achieving better exam results or career prospects, and English courses Edinburgh are popular for this reason as they provide the chance to improve one's English for either business or pleasure. Sometimes students are simply eager for the challenge, which Lord Bryon's example proves it's not just a recent phenomenon!