Infographic Category Education

Old World Language Families

By | source:'Stand Still. Stay Silent.' Comic Jun 23rd, 2015

As humans evolve, so does our manner of communication. I took a French linguistics course my senior year of college, and I soon came to realize that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to languages.

Language is arguably one of the most complex systems of communication that humans have created for themselves. Migration, slang, and even technology have all had tremendous impacts on the evolution and spread of different languages. This infographic, although it was created for a comic, can most definitely be used to creatively display the relationships of various languages around the world. Interestingly enough the languages we speak have even affected fictional languages.

Ted-Ed Original explains how the creators of different fantasy languages like Dothraki, Elvish, Na’vi and Klingon have adapted the way languages in this infographic are constructed and have evolved to develop their constructed languages, or Conlangs. As the world becomes more interconnected, it will be interesting to see how different languages have evolved during my lifetime.