Indo-European Family of Languages Prepared by Furkhat Checked by Mr. Khuanishbay Introduction

Greek

Greek is more a group of dialects rather than a branch of languages.

More than 3,000 years of written history have Greek dialects that never evolved into mutually incomprehensible languages.

Greek was predominant in the Southern part of the Balkans, the Peloponnese Peninsula, as well as the Aegean Sea and its vicinity.

Mycenaean is the earliest surviving written evidence of a Greek language.

It belongs to the dialect of the Mycenaean civilization, mainly found on clay tablets and ceramic vessels on the Isle of Crete.

Mycenaean did not have an alphabetic written system but a syllabic script known as the Linear B Script.

Italic

This branch was predominant on the Italian peninsula.
The Italics, who crossed the Alps to enter Italy and gradually moved southward around 1000 BC, were not natives of Italy.
Latin, the best-known language of the group, was originally a somewhat minor local language, spoken by pastoral tribes that lived in small agricultural settlements in the center of the Italian peninsula.
The first Latin inscriptions appeared in the 7th century BC and then spread significantly by the 6th century BC.

Celtic

This branch splits into two sub-branches: Continental Celtic and Insular Celtic. By about 600 BC, Celtic-speaking tribes had spread from what we know today as Southern Germany, Austria, and Western Czech Republic in almost all directions, to France, Belgium, Spain, and the British Isles.

Then, by 400 BC, they also moved Southward into Northern Italy and Southeast into the Balkans and even beyond.

During the early 1st century BC, Celtic-speaking tribes dominated a very significant portion of Europe.

In 50 BC, Julius Caesar conquered Gaul (ancient France), but, about a century later, the emperor Claudius conquered Britain.