to study languages where they are spoken
21Indo-Aryan languages — Indo Aryan Indic Geographic distribution: South Asia Linguistic classification: Indo European Indo Iranian Indo Aryan …
22Languages of Catalonia — Originating in the historic territory of Catalonia (an Autonomous Community of Spain), Catalan is one of the three official languages and has enjoyed special status since the approval of the Statute of Autonomy of 1979 which declares it to be the …
23Dravidian languages — Family of 23 languages indigenous to and spoken principally in South Asia by more than 210 million people. The four major Dravidian languages of southern India Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam have independent scripts and long documented… …
24South American Indian languages — Introduction group of languages that once covered and today still partially cover all of South America, the Antilles, and Central America to the south of a line from the Gulf of Honduras to the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. Estimates of… …
25Mesoamerican Indian languages — Introduction also called Middle American Indian languages group of languages spoken in an area of the aboriginal New World that includes central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, parts of Honduras and Nicaragua, and… …
26Romance languages — romance1 (def. 8). [1770 80] * * * Group of related languages derived from Latin, with nearly 920 million native speakers. The major Romance languages French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian are national languages. French is probably… …
27Tibeto-Burman languages — Introduction language group within the Sino Tibetan family (Sino Tibetan languages). At the end of the 20th century, Tibeto Burman languages were spoken by approximately 57 million people; countries that had more than 1 million Tibeto… …
28Khoisan languages — Group of more than 20 languages presently spoken by perhaps several hundred thousand Khoekhoe and San peoples of southern Africa. A number of Khoisan languages are now either extinct or spoken by very few people. Their most distinctive linguistic …
29Altaic languages — Group of more than 50 languages, comprising the Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu Tungus subfamilies. Altaic languages are spoken across Eurasia by more than 140 million people (the overwhelming majority of whom speak Turkic languages). Most scholars …
30Indo-European languages — Family of languages with the greatest number of speakers, spoken in most of Europe and areas of European settlement and in much of southwestern and southern Asia. They are descended from a single unrecorded language believed to have been spoken… …
