Austin Bible Church
Most probably all languages had a common origin. One man, Alfredo Trombetti of Rome, claims that he has proven it.
There are three stages which are evident in the history of languages:
Isolating: These are languages in which the meaning of words and sentences are determined by their position in the sentence and the tone of voice. (Chinese, Burmese and English)
Agglutinative: These languages depend on various prefixes, infixes, and suffixes to give certain meanings. (Hungarian and Turkish)
Inflectional: These are languages which use stem and endings which no longer exist separately. There are two great families of these inflectional languages. The Semitic family: one being the Hebrew of the Old Testament. The Indo-Germanic or Indo-European language: one being the Greek of the New Testament.
The Indo-European family has eight major divisions:
The Aryan Group: Within this group is Sanskrit, pre-1500 BC. The Sanskrit as a spoken language died out before the Christian era.
Armenian: Inscriptions in the Phrygian language still exist. Armenian is an offshoot of Phrygian, so considered by Herodotus.
Greek: There are many dialects and a long history: Pelasgians, Achaeans, Dorians, Aeolians, Ionians, Attic, Koine, Arcadian, Boeotian, Northwest, Thessalian, etc.
Albanian: Language of Illyria,
Latin and kindred dialects: Oscan, Umbrian, etc. From these the romance languages of the modern day: French, Italian, Provencal, Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanian, etc.
Keltic: Old Gaulish of Caesar’s time, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Manx, Irish, Scotch Gaelic, etc.
Germanic or Teutonic: this falls into three major divisions, Gothic, West German and our modem English. Gothic: Scandinavian, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish. West Germanic Dialects: Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, Old Saxon, or Low German, Old High German, Old Low Franconian, later Dutch and Flemish. Modern English: a combination of Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French.
The periods of history of the Greek languages:
Mycenaean Age: 1500-100 BC
Age of Dialects: 1000-330 BC Homer to Alexander
Koine Greek: 330 BC to 330 AD
Byzantine Greek: 330 AD to 1453 AD. 1453 is the date when the Turks captured Constantinople.
Modern Greek: 1453 to present time.
The dialects related to geographical locations:
West Greek divisions: Northwest Greek: Phician, Locrian, Elean, etc. Doric: Laconian, Corinthian, Argolic, Cretan, etc.
East Greek division: Attic: Ionic, Aeolic: Lesbian, Thessalian, Boeotian, Arcado: Cyprian or Achaean.
