Introduction

Abstract

This chapter provides a rapid survey of the languages spoken in East and South-East Asia today. Important criterion is the cultural importance of a language, in terms of the age and influence of its cultural heritage. Certain languages are major even despite the absence of native speakers, as with Latin and Sanskrit. Latin has provided a major contribution to all European languages, as can be seen most superficially in the extent to which words of Latin origin are used in European languages. A language can have influence beyond the areas where it is the native or second language. In medieval Europe, Latin was clearly the major language despite the lack of native speakers, it was the lingua franca of those who needed to communicate across linguistic boundaries. Social factors and social attitudes can even bring about apparent reversals in the family-tree model of language relatedness.