A language family is a group of related languages that developed from a common historic ancestor, referred to as protolanguage (proto– means 'early' in Greek). ... Further back in time, all these ancestral languages descended, in turn, from one common ancestor. the most popular languge family is Indo-European
With over 5,000 languages spoken in the world, it helps to break them into families to provide a better understanding of where languages are spoken, how they are similar or unique, why language changes, and how they may have originated. Languages are broken into families based on their origins, sounds, and words. There are over fifteen language families in the world today. The most common language family is the Indo-European family, which includes languages such as English and Spanish. This language family is used on every continent, and it is dominant in locations such as North America, South America, and Europe. Other common language families include Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan (used in Africa), and Altaic and Sino-Tibetan (used in Asia).
