Indo-European languages

Indo-European
Geographic distribution:	Before the 16th century, Europe, and South, Central and Southwest Asia, today worldwide.
Linguistic classification:	One of the world's major language families
Proto-language:	Proto-Indo-European
Subdivisions:	Albanian Anatolian (extinct) Armenian Balto-Slavic (Baltic and Slavic) Celtic Dacian Germanic Hellenic (Greek) Indo-Iranian (Iranian and Indo-Aryan) Tocharian (extinct) Italic (includes Romance)
ISO 639-2 and 639-5:	ine
Countries in which most speak Indo-European languages   Countries in which an Indo-European minority language has an official status   Countries in which no Indo-European language is official but a significant minority speaks one

The Indo-European languages are the world's most spoken language family.^[1]

Linguists believe they all come from a single language, Proto-Indo-European, which was originally spoken somewhere in Eurasia. They are now spoken all over the world.

The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects,^[2] including most major languages in Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia.

Historically, the language family was also important in Anatolia and Central Asia.

The earliest Indo-European writing is from the Bronze Age in Anatolian and Mycenaean Greek. The origin of Proto-Indo-European is after the invention of farming since some of its words have to do with farming.

Although it may have fewer languages than some other language families, it has the most native speakers, about 2.7 billion.^[1]

Of the 20 languages with the most speakers, 12 are Indo-European: English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, German, Sindhi, Punjabi, Marathi, French, and Urdu.^[1]

Four of the six official languages of the United Nations are Indo-European: English, Spanish, French, and Russian.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} "Ethnologue list of language families". Ethnologue.com. Archived from the original on 2011-08-24. Retrieved 2010-08-07.
2. ↑ It is composed of 449 languages and dialects, according to the 2005 Ethnologue estimate, about half (219) belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch.