2006-10-02 07:53:15 · 19 answers · asked by sean a 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
All languages are derived from another language. Unless that is the language was completely invented from scratch and then adopted by enough people to make it viable (so you can have someone else to talk to and therefore get some use out of it) and sustainable (so that your descendants keep speaking it as opposed to adopting another, more useful language). All of this is incredibly unlikely, so it is therefore virtually certain that all languages are derived from another.
Basque is one of the only absolute isolated languages still in use in Europe: it is not part of the Indo-European family (as most European languages are) and has no surviving relatives. It is for this reason that some people claim it to be the oldest language on the continent, although this is hotly contested.
There are numerous languages all over Europe that are only spoken by a few people (e.g. Ladin in Italy).
2006-10-03 09:04:45 · answer #1 · answered by Samuel O 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Finnish, Hungarian (Magyar), and Basque are largely unrelated to other languages, whereas the other European languages fall into groups eg Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Slavonic, etc which are in turn derived from a common ancestor language, Indo-European.
2006-10-02 10:58:30 · answer #2 · answered by Bridget F 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would like to add that ural altaic is somewhat outdated, and it is more specific to say finno-ulgric. This is technically part of the indo european subclassification, which is unfortunate because the cultures and languages in this group are nothing like those of the actual Europe. Also, some do not share the standard Latin alphabet. Old Norse is certainly a Indo-European language, and the only unique grammatical quirk is the dual pronoun.
2006-10-02 15:42:17 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Basque is the only language spoken in Europe today which is unrelated to any other language. Of course, it too must derive from a (pre-IndoEuropean) antecedant, but there are no records.
2006-10-05 00:09:58 · answer #4 · answered by Jane T 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Basque language has no known relations in Europe (or anywhere else as far as I know). Most of the rest are Indo-European except Finnish and Hungarian (Finno-Ugric).
2006-10-02 08:11:38 · answer #5 · answered by MMac 2 · 3⤊ 0⤋
I believe it's finnish (although possibly also hungarian). They are part of the Uralic language family, and as I recall it doesn't have the base latin language structure that other indo-european languages have.
2006-10-02 08:58:38 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
a trick question? every language derives from some other language; it's just that in some cases we don't know exactly which.
you're probably thinking of basque, which is not related to any other language in europe, and probably not related to any other language on earth.
2006-10-02 08:01:06 · answer #7 · answered by Charles P 1 · 4⤊ 1⤋
Are we actually European? Hope note.
WELSH is the oldest Language in Europe.
2006-10-02 08:09:19 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Greek
Latin is technically a european language but as the vatican is not in the EU its debateable.
2006-10-02 08:02:01 · answer #9 · answered by commentator 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
german and english are both derived from Germanic
There are like 5 or 6 different Original Languages...im not exactly sure what all of them are but i know 3
Germanic
Latin
Old Norsh
2006-10-02 08:06:20 · answer #10 · answered by Lek 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋