How Indo-European Became the World’s Largest Language Family, According to Experts

How Indo-European Became the World’s Largest Language Family, According to Experts

Lezoux Plate contains Celtic language. Credit: Helene Perdicoyianni-Paleologou / CC BY-SA 4.0 One of humanity’s defining features is the ability to speak in complex languages. Today, nearly 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide and are grouped into about 140 families. The five largest language families are Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, and Austronesian, which are spoken by enormous swaths of Earth’s population. The Indo-…