Sprunger

ENG 315

1. This chart shows the language groups that make up the I-E language family. Linguists have historically classified these ten language branches according to whether their word for "hundred" is more similar to either "centum" or "satem." ("Centum" is Latin for "hundred"; "satem" is Avestan (Indo-Iranian) for "hundred.")

The early I-E word for "hundred" was "kmtóm." At some primitive state, evidently the [k] in I-E became [s] in the Satem group of languages. It remained [k] in the Centum group. Other words beginning with [k] underwent a similar change in the Satem group. (In the Germanic branch of the Centum languages, the [k] later shifted to [h] as in our modern "hundred.")

2. Linguistic historians speculate that the I-E tribe original lived in North Central Europe (perhaps Lithuania), and as they migrated eastward and westward, their language developed in distinctly different ways. The line in the box that divides the group runs roughly from the Scandinavian countries to the Mediterranean.

3. * Tocharian may defy the geographic pattern. It appears to be a Centum language, but it's found in western China, east of the line that usually separates the Centum and Satem languages. We know so little about the Tocharian language, however, that it's impossible to determine anything about its speakers or their history. For modern linguists, the major importance of Tocharian is to remind us how arbitrary and artificial the whole Centum/Satem division may be.