- published: 14 Dec 2015
- views: 6809
The Indo-European languages are a family (or phylum) of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age, in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek, the Indo-European family is significant to the field of historical linguistics as possessing the longest recorded history after the Afroasiatic family.
Indo-European languages are spoken by almost three billion native speakers, the largest number for any recognised language family. Of the twenty languages with the largest numbers of native speakers according to SIL Ethnologue, twelve are Indo-European: Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, German, Marathi, French, Italian, Punjabi, and Urdu, accounting for over 1.7 billion native speakers. Several disputed proposals link Indo-European to other major language families.
Suggestions of similarities between Indian and European languages began to be made by European visitors to India in the 16th century. In 1583 Thomas Stephens, an English Jesuit missionary in Goa, noted similarities between Indian languages, specifically Konkani, and Greek and Latin. These observations, however, were included in a letter to his brother which was not published until the twentieth century.
If I were a country without borders
I would change this old world order
And let you in...
I would be a tree in summer growing
A symbol of life flowing
My leaves and branches opening...
I call the image down to me
With each breath - a prayer I speak
Make us One Tribe...
One Tribe...
If I come to you
Will you come to me
With every language - sacred to you
If I were a boat upon the water
I would sail your sons and daughters
To the lands of the free...
I would grow a garden that was ours
A natural home of flowers
All in bloom eternally...
I call the image down to me
With each breath - a prayer I speak
Make us One Tribe...
One Tribe...
Heal with a human touch
Nothing else if left for us
Make us, be One Tribe...
Come in the dark when the night is lonely
Open your heart to something holy
Sing with the lark before the break of dawn...
If I come to you
Will you come to me
With every language - every creed
If I trust in you
Will you trust in me
So we could all be One Tribe...
I call the image down to me
With each breath - a prayer I speak
Make us One Tribe...
Heal with a human touch
Nothing else is left for us
Make us, be One Tribe...
If I come to you
Will you come to me
With every language - every creed
If I trust in you
Will you trust in me
So we could all be One Tribe...
One Tribe...
We'll all be One Tribe...
We'll all be One Tribe...
One Tribe...
We'll all be One Tribe...
One Tribe...
We'll all be One Tribe...
One Tribe...