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Article: Factfile on -- languages.
- Article from:
- New Internationalist
- Article date:
- October 1, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 New Internationalist Magazine. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Although no-one knows the exact number, there are at least 6,000 languages in the world today. More than half may have disappeared by the year 2025.
Languages usually have a relatively short lifespan. Only a few, including Basque, Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit and Tamil, have lasted more than 2000 years.
FAMILY TIES(2)
Many languages have a common source and it is possible to group them into families:
1. INDO-EUROPEAN: There are striking similarities between the major European languages and Sanskrit. These point to a common ancestor that probably originated in Eastern Europe 25,000 years ago. The original ...