&_160;&_160;&_160;&_160;&_160;Countries with a majority of speakers of IE languages &_160;&_160;&_160;&_160;&_160;Countries with an IE minority language with official statusThe Indo-European languages are a family (or phylum) of several hundred related languages and dialects,[1] including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia. Attested since the Bronze Age, in the form of Mycenaean Greek and Anatolian languages, the Indo-European family is significant to the field of historical linguistics as possessing the longest recorded history after the Afroasiatic family.
The languages of the Indo-European group are spoken by approximately three billion native speakers, the largest number of the recognised families of languages. (Several disputed proposals merge Indo-European with other major language families.)
Suggestions of similarities between Indian and European languages began to be made by European visitors to India in the 16th century. In 1583 Thomas Stephens, an English Jesuit missionary in Goa, noted similarities between Indian languages, specifically Konkani, and Greek and Latin. These observations were included in a letter to his brother which was not published until the twentieth century.[2]
