Language families

• Niger-Congo family


  • Bantu branch
  • Swahili
  • Zulu
  • Xhosa
• Some Bantu languages are known for having clicks as speech sounds
• Dravidian family


  • Tamil
  • Malayalam
  • Kannada
• Trans-New Guinea family


  • Enga
  • Makasae
• Pama-Nyungan family


  • Turubal
• Non-Pama-Nyungan languages are a number of different families in Northern Australia
• Quechuan family


  • Spoken in the Peruvian Andes, South America
• Tupian family


  • Spoken in Brazil and neighbouring countries, South America
• Na-Dené family


  • Navajo
• Algic family


  • Cree
  • Ojibwe
• Uralic family


  • Hungarian
  • Finnish
  • Estonian
  • Saami languages
  • Samoyedic languages
• Indo-European family branches

  • Germanic branch
  • West Germanic branch
  • North Germanic branch
  • Italic branch
  • Celtic branch
  • Hellenic branch
  • Indo-Iranian branch
  • Indo-Aryan branch
  • Iranian branch
  • Slavic branch
  • Baltic branch
• Basque is spoken in the Basque Country (a region spanning parts of France and Spain). It has no known relatives among other world languages.
• Language isolates are languages that do not belong to any language family.
• The Austronesian family includes many of the Pacific Ocean’s major languages such as Malay, Tagalog, Indonesian, Javanese, Vietnamese, Polynesian languages like Hawaiian, Tahitian, Samoan, Maori, and Melanesian languages like Fijian and Papua New Guinea Highland Pidgin.
• The Na-Dené language family includes Navajo, Apache, and Athabaskan languages.
• The Dravidian language family includes Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam.
• The Sino-Tibetan language family includes Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, and various Himalayan languages.
• The Sino-Tibetan family includes Chinese dialects, Tibetan, Burmese, and various minority languages from China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Myanmar.
• Indo-European: Germanic branch

  • West Germanic branch
  • english
  • Dutch
  • German
  • afrikaans
  • frisian
  • yiddish
  • North Germanic branch
  • swedish
  • danish
  • norwegian
  • icelandic
• Indo-European: Italic branch

  • french
  • catalan
  • italian
  • portuguese
  • provencal
  • romanian
  • spanish
• Indo-European: Celtic branch

  • Breton
  • irish
  • scots gaelic
  • welsh
• Indo-European: Hellenic branch


  Greek
• Indo-European: Indo-Iranian branch

  • Indo-Aryan branch
  • Hindi
  • Urdu
  • Iranian branch
  • Persian
  • Pashto
  • Kurdish
• Indo-European: Slavic branch

  • Russian
• Indo-European: Baltic branch

  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
• Austronesian family

  • Formosan branch
  • Malayo-Polynesian branch
  • Tagalog
  • Malay
  • Javanese
  • Oceanic branch
  • Fijian
  • Polynesian branch
  • Māori
  • Hawaiian
• Sino-Tibetan family

  • Sinitic branch
  • Mandarin
  • Cantonese/Yue
  • Wu
  • Min
  • Tibeto-Burmese branch
  • Tibetan
  • Burmese
• Afro-Asiatic family (Northern Africa and Middle East)

  • Semitic branch
  • Arabic
  • Hebrew
  • Aramaic
  • Berber branch
  • Berber
  • Cushitic branch
  • Somali