Related language
Consider the following data:
Language A:
due
naso
fratello
padre
sette
orecchio
dieci
Language B:
bi
sudur
anaia
aita
zazpi
belarri
hamar
Language C:
dó
srón
bráthair
athair
seacht
cluas
deich
Language D
doi
nas
frate
tată
sapte
ureche
zece
Gloss
‘two’
‘nose’ ‘brother’ ‘father’ ‘seven’
‘ear’
‘ten’
i. Which two languages seem to be very closely related? How can you tell?
ii. What language seems to be at least distantly related to the two languages you identified in (i)? How can you tell?
iii. Which language is not related to the others? How can you tell?
i. Which two languages seem to be very closely related? How can you tell?
Languages A and C seem to be very closely related. This is because they share many cognates, or words that have a common origin. For example, the word for "two" is "due" in Language A and "dó" in Language C. The word for "nose" is "naso" in Language A and "srón" in Language C. The word for "brother" is "fratello" in Language A and "bráthair" in Language C. And so on.
ii. What language seems to be at least distantly related to the two languages you identified in (i)? How can you tell?
Language B seems to be at least distantly related to Languages A and C. This is because it shares some cognates with these languages, but not as many as Languages A and C share with each other. For example, the word for "two" is "bi" in Language B, which is similar to the word "due" in Language A and "dó" in Language C. The word for "nose" is "sudur" in Language B, which is similar to the word "naso" in Language A. And so on.
iii. Which language is not related to the others? How can you tell?
Language D is not related to the others. This is because it shares no cognates with Languages A, B, or C. For example, the word for "two" is "doi" in Language D, which is not similar to the words "due", "dó", or "bi" in the other languages. The word for "nose" is "nas" in Language D, which is not similar to the words "naso", "srón", or "sudur" in the other languages. And so on.