In 2014, while living in the United Kingdom, I compiled several language family charts, including Romance, Romance Creoles, and Germanic language families. This week, I updated the formatting on them, and did a few more families, including Muskogee, Bantu, Semitic, and Persian. I mostly did these for the benefit of the students of the Modern Languages Department at my school, staff and visitors to our school.
Because this website primarily deals with speakers of Kouri-Vini, French, and Spanish, I will only share 2 charts here. The first is the Romance Languages Comparison Chart. The second is the Romance Creoles Comparison Chart. It comes at the perfect moment, also, as October is celebrated around the world as International Creole Heritage Month.
Before moving further, I need to clarify a few things.
- First, by “romance,” I mean languages whose vocabularies overwhelmingly derive from Latin. Romance, in the linguistic sense, simply means a language whose vocabulary originates in the language of Rome … Latin.
- Second, I am well aware that Creole languages are not typically including in this language family tree, but it does not make it right. The fact is that the vocabulary of the Creole languages in the chart, derive from French, Spanish, or Portuguese, and these 3 parent languages are, without question, lexical children of Latin. The Creoles in the chart are therefore grandchildren of Latin. Universities and academics often draw arbitrary lines to demarcate language groupings at the university, and in no university that I personally know, Creole languages are part of the “Romance Languages” curriculum. It does not make it right, though.
- Third, these charts do not seek to be exhaustive, either in the languages included in the chart, or in the content of the chart. I intentionally did not include multiple orthographies used for the languages, and consciously only included a handful to make the point for students, staff, and visitors to our school.
- You may download these charts, and use them as educational tools, by clicking them “Download Here” text beneath the image. Reproducing and monetizing of these charts are prohibited.
All this aside, I do hope they prove useful for you. Any questions, or concerns, of course, please do respond or email.
Click here to view larger, or to download.
Click here to view larger, or to download.
– Christophe Landry