List of Indo-European languages


This is a list of languages in the Indo-European language family. It contains a large number of individual languages, together spoken by roughly half the world's population.

Numbers of languages and language groups

The Indo-European languages include some 449 languages spoken by about 3.5 billion people or more. Most of the major languages belonging to language branches and groups in Europe, and western and southern Asia, belong to the Indo-European language family. This is thus the biggest language family in the world by number of mother tongue speakers. Eight of the top ten biggest languages, by number of native speakers, are Indo-European. One of these languages, English, is the de facto world lingua franca, with an estimate of over one billion second language speakers.
The Indo-European language family has 10 known branches or subfamilies, of which eight are living and two are extinct. Most of the subfamilies or linguistic branches in this list contain many subgroups and individual languages. The relationships between these branches are a matter of further research and not yet fully known. There are some individual Indo-European languages that are unclassified within the language family; they are not yet classified in a branch and could constitute a separate branch.
The 449 Indo-European languages identified in the SIL estimate, 2018 edition, are mostly living languages. If all the known extinct Indo-European languages are added, they number more than 800 or close to one thousand. This list includes all known Indo-European languages, living and extinct.

Definition of ''language''

The distinction between a language and a dialect is not clear-cut and simple: in many areas there is a dialect continuum, with transitional dialects and languages. Further, there is no agreed standard criterion for what amount of differences in vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and prosody are required to constitute a separate language, as opposed to a mere dialect. Mutual intelligibility can be considered, but there are closely related languages that are also mutual intelligible to some degree, even if it is an asymmetric intelligibility. Or there may be cases where between three dialects, A, B, and C, A and B are mutually intelligible, B and C are mutually intelligible, but A and C are not. In such circumstances grouping the three dielects becomes impossible. Because of this, in this list, several dialect groups and some individual dialects of languages are shown, especially if a language is or was spoken by a large number of people and over a large land area, but also if it has or had divergent dialects.

Summary of historical development

The ancestral population and language, Proto-Indo-Europeans that spoke Proto-Indo-European, are estimated to have lived about 4500 BCE. At some point in time, starting about 4000 BCE, this population expanded through migration and cultural influence. This started a complex process of population blend or population replacement, acculturation and language change of peoples in many regions of western and southern Eurasia. This process gave origin to many languages and branches of this language family.
By around 1000 BCE, there were many millions of Indo-European speakers, and they lived in a vast geographical area which covered most of western and southern Eurasia.
In the following two millennia the number of speakers of Indo-European languages increased even further.
Indo-European languages continued to be spoken in large land areas, although most of western Central Asia and Asia Minor were lost to other language families due to Turkic expansion, conquests and settlement and also to Mongol invasions and conquests. Another land area lost to non-Indo-European languages was today's Hungary, due to Magyar/Hungarian conquest and settlement.
However, from about AD 1500 onwards, Indo-European languages expanded their territories to North Asia, through Russian expansion, and North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand as the result of the age of European discoveries and European conquests through the expansions of the Portuguese, Spanish, French, English and the Dutch.
The contact between different peoples and languages, especially as a result of European colonization, also gave origin to the many pidgins, creoles and mixed languages that are mainly based in Indo-European languages.

Proto-Indo-European

Dating the split-offs of the main branches

Although all Indo-European languages descend from a common ancestor called Proto-Indo-European, the kinship between the subfamilies or branches, that descend from other more recent proto-languages, is not the same because there are subfamilies that are closer or further, and they did not split-off at the same time, the affinity or kinship of Indo-European subfamilies or branches between themselves is still an unresolved and controversial issue and being investigated.
However, there is some consensus that Anatolian was the first group of Indo-European to split-off from all the others and Tocharian was the second in which that happened.
Using a mathematical analysis borrowed from evolutionary biology, Donald Ringe and Tandy Warnow propose the following tree of Indo-European branches:
David W. Anthony, following the methodology of Donald Ringe and Tandy Warnow, proposes the following sequence:
The list below follows Donald Ringe, Tandy Warnow and Ann Taylor classification tree for Indo-European branches. quoted in Anthony, David W., The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, Princeton University Press. The Indo-European phylogenetic tree of subfamilies or branches is also based in Chang, Chundra & Hall 2015, pp. 199–200 and Hyllested & Joseph 2022, p. 241.

[Anatolian languages] (all extinct)

Unclassified
Possibly Anatolian

[Tocharian languages] (Agnean-Kuchean) (all extinct)

[Armenian language]

  • Proto-Armenian
  • *Classical Armenian
  • **Liturgical Armenian
  • **Middle Armenian / Cilician Armenian
  • ***Modern Armenian
  • ****Armenian
  • *****Armenian Standards
  • ******Eastern Armenian
  • ******Western Armenian
  • *****Armenian dialects
  • ******Eastern Armenian
  • *******-owm dialects
  • ********Araratian
  • *********Yerevan
  • **********Modern Eastern Armenian Standard
  • ********Jugha / Julfa
  • ********Zok
  • *********Agulis
  • *********Meghri
  • ********Artsakh / Karabagh Armenian
  • ********Eastern Armenian dialects in the diaspora
  • *********Tiflis / Tbilisi Armenian
  • *********Shamakha
  • *********Astrakhan Armenian
  • *********Iranian Armenian dialect
  • **********Northwest Iran Armenian
  • ***********Tabriz Armenian
  • **********North Iran Armenian
  • ***********Tehran Armenian
  • **********Central Iran Armenian
  • ***********New Jugha / New Julfa / Isfahan Armenian
  • *******-el dialects
  • ********Ardvin / Tayk
  • ********Nor Shirakan
  • *********Khoy
  • *********Maragha
  • ******Western Armenian
  • *******-gë dialects
  • ********Karin / Upper Armenia
  • ********Turuberan
  • *********Mush / Taron
  • **********Gavar
  • ********Van / Vaspurakan
  • *********Torfavan
  • ********Tigranakert / Aghdznik
  • ********Kharpert-Yerznka /
  • ********Shabin–Karahisar
  • ********Trapizon / Trabzon Armenian
  • ********Malatia
  • *********Adiyaman
  • ********Cilician Armenian
  • ********Sueidia / Syrian Armenian
  • *********Vakıflı
  • *********Kessab
  • *********Latakia
  • *********Jisr al-Shughur
  • *********Anjar
  • ********Arabkir
  • ********Akn
  • ********Sebastia / Sivas Armenian
  • ********Tokat
  • ********Western Armenian dialects in the diaspora
  • *********West Anatolia diaspora
  • **********Nicomedia / Izmit Armenian
  • **********Constantinople / Istanbul Armenian
  • **********Rodosto / Tekirdağ Armenian
  • **********Smyrna / Izmir Armenian
  • *********Black Sea diaspora
  • **********Crimean Armenian
  • ***********Nakhichevan-on-Don / Nor Nakhichevan - New Nakhichevan / Don Armenian
  • *********Levant diaspora
  • **********Kaghakatsi / Jerusalem Armenian
  • *********European diaspora
  • **********Austria-Hungary
  • *********North American diaspora
  • *********South American diaspora
  • *********Australian diaspora
  • ********'''Homshetsi'''

[Hellenic languages]

  • Proto-Greek
  • *Mycenaean Greek
  • **[Ancient Hellenic languages|Greek language|Ancient Greek]
  • ***Ancient Greek dialects
  • ****East Greek
  • *****Central Group
  • ******Aeolic Greek
  • *******Thessalian
  • *******Boeotian
  • *******Lesbian / Lesbos Island
  • *******Asia Minor Aeolian
  • ******Arcadocypriot
  • *******Arcadian
  • *******Cypriot
  • *******Pamphylian Greek '
  • *****Eastern Group
  • ******Ionic
  • *******Ionic Literary Dialect
  • ********Homeric Greek / Epic Greek
  • *******Attic
  • ********Koine Greek
  • *********Biblical Greek
  • **********Septuagint Greek
  • ***********Jewish Koine Greek
  • **********New Testament Greek
  • *********Medieval Greek / Byzantine Greek)
  • **********Modern Greek
  • ***********Greek
  • ************Greek Standards
  • *************Katharevousa / Old Standard Greek
  • *************Demotic / Modern Standard Greek
  • ************Modern Greek dialects
  • *************Southern dialects
  • **************Archaic dialects
  • ***************Old Athenian
  • ***************Aeginian
  • ***************Kymian
  • ***************Megaran
  • ***************Maniot
  • ****************Paomia-Cargèse Greek '
  • **************Ionian-Peloponnesian
  • ***************Peloponnesian
  • ***************Ionian Islands
  • ***************South Euboean
  • **************Cretan-Cycladian
  • ***************Cretan
  • ***************Cycladian
  • **************Southeastern
  • ***************Chiote-Ikarian
  • ***************Dodecanesian
  • ***************Lycian Greek
  • ***************Cypriot
  • **************North Epirote
  • ***************Himariote
  • *************Northern dialects
  • **************Central dialects
  • ***************North Euboean-Sporadic
  • ***************Skyriot
  • ***************Mykonian
  • ***************Desfinan
  • ***************Lefkadan
  • **************Northern Proper
  • ***************Thessalian
  • ***************South Epirote
  • ***************Vourbianian
  • ***************Kastorian
  • ***************Naousan
  • ***************Macedonian Greek
  • ***************Sarakatsanian
  • ***************Thracian Greek
  • ***************Rumelian Greek
  • ***************Constantinopolitan Greek
  • ***************Bithynian Greek
  • ***************Artakian
  • ***************Western Anatolian
  • ****************North Aegean
  • *****************Lesbic
  • *****************Lemnic
  • ****************Smyrniote
  • ****************Samian
  • *************Greco-Australian
  • **********Asia Minor Greek / Anatolian Greek
  • ***********Silliot
  • ***********Proto-Cappadocian
  • ************Pharasiot
  • ************Pontic-Cappadocian
  • *************Pontic Greek '
  • **************Western Pontic
  • **************Trepezuntine
  • **************Chaldiot
  • **************Mariupolitan Greek
  • *************Cappadocian Greek '
  • **********Italiot Greek
  • ***********Salentinian Greek / Griko
  • ***********Calabrian Greek / Grecanico
  • **********Yevanic
  • *******West Ionic / Euboean
  • ********Chalcidician
  • *******Central Ionic / Cycladian Ionic / Northern Cycladian
  • *******East Ionic / Asia Minor Ionic
  • ****West Greek / Doric / Dorian
  • *****Northwest Greek / Northwest Doric
  • ******Locrian Greek
  • ******Phocian-Delphian
  • ******Elean
  • ******Northwest Greek koine
  • *****Achaean Doric
  • ******Achaean Doric
  • ******Achaean Doric Koine
  • *****Doric proper
  • ******Megarian
  • ******Corinthian
  • ******Argolic
  • ******Laconian
  • *******Tsakonian
  • ******Messenian
  • ******Cretan
  • ******Cycladian Doric / Southern Cycladian
  • *******Thera-Cyrenaean
  • ********Thera Island
  • ********Cyrenaean Greek
  • ******Asia Minor Doric
  • *******Rhodian / Rhodes Island
  • *******Coan / Cos Island
  • *Ancient Macedonian

[Albanian language]

  • Proto-Albanian
  • *Albanian
  • **Albanian dialects
  • ***Gheg Albanian
  • ****Northern Gheg
  • *****Northwestern Gheg
  • ******Malësia
  • ******Kraja
  • ******Shkodër and Lezhë
  • *****Northeastern Gheg
  • ******East Drin basin
  • ******Nikaj and Mertur
  • ******Tropoja
  • ******Kosovë and Metohi / Kosovo Albanian
  • ****Central / Middle Gheg
  • *****Mati
  • *****Upper Reka
  • ****Southern Gheg
  • *****Elbasan Gheg
  • *****Old Tirana
  • *****Peqin Province
  • *****Southern Gheg diaspora
  • ******Arbanasi
  • ******Istrian Albanian
  • ***Tosk Albanian
  • ****Northern Tosk
  • *****Northwest Tosk
  • ******Berat
  • ******Skrapar
  • ******Vlora
  • *****Northeast Tosk
  • ******Opar
  • ******Devoll
  • ******Korçë
  • *****Southeast
  • *****Middle Vjosa
  • *****Northern Tosk diaspora
  • ******Western Thracian Tosk
  • ****Southern Tosk
  • *****Lab
  • ******East Drinos Valley
  • ******Bregdeti i Poshtëm
  • ******Vurg of Delvina
  • *****Cham
  • ******Souliot Cham
  • ****Transitional Northern-Southern Tosk / Tosk diaspora
  • *****Mandritsa Albanian / Bulgarian Albanian
  • *****Ukraine Albanian '
  • *****Arbërishte
  • ******Apulia Arbërishte
  • ****** Molise Arbërishte / Campo Marino Albanian
  • ******Campania Arbërishte
  • ******Basilicata Arbërishte
  • ******Calabria Arbërishte / Calabro-Arbërishte
  • ******Sicilia Arbërishte
  • *****Arvanitika'
  • ******Viotia Arvanitika / Boeotia Arvanitika
  • ******Evia Arvanitika / Euboea Arvanitika
  • ******Attiki Arvanitika / Attica Arvanitika
  • ******Salamina Arvanitika
  • ******Peloponnese Arvanitika''

[Italic languages]

[Celtic languages]

Germanic languages|Germanic languages]]

[Balto-Slavic languages]

[Baltic languages]

[Slavic languages]

[Indo-Iranian languages]

[Iranian languages]

[Nuristani languages]

[Indo-Aryan languages]

Unclassified Indo-European languages (all extinct)

Indo-European languages whose relationship to other languages in the family is unclear

Possible Indo-European languages (all extinct)

Unclassified languages that may have been Indo-European or members of other language families