Originally Posted By: zmjezhd
A tree diagram like the one in the link are good at showing relationships between languages, but there was (early on) a competing map of language development to the orthodox Stammbaum theory (family tree), and it was called the Wave Theory. That languages develop over time like the waves on a pond after a pebble has been dropped in, overlapping and expanding waves of change. While we're on it, some linguists who study semantic fields (i.e., how words can be grouped together by meaning rather than form) draw diagrams similar to the one under discussion. (See the Wikipedia article on tree model.)


John McWhorter feels that there is more to it than a simple tree diagram. I particular he believes that English grammar was highly influenced by Welsh grammar in its (English's) early days in England and that Proto-Germanic was influenced by a Semitic language in its early days, citing the fact that about one-third of the words in the Germanic languages are not from any known PIE roots and that the ablaut series for strong verb tenses is seen in no other branch of Indo-European. Read all about it in his Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.