Language families is a term used to classify peoples by language. The language family includes languages that are related to each other.
Kinship is manifested in the similarity of the sound of words denoting the same subject, as well as in the similarity of elements such as morphemes, grammatical forms.
According to the theory of monogenesis, the language families of the world were formed from the proto-language spoken by the ancient peoples. The division occurred due to the predominance of the nomadic way of life of the tribes and their remoteness from each other.
Language families are subdivided as follows.
| Language family name | Languages in the family | Regions of distribution |
| Indo-European | Hindi | India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Fiji |
| Urdu | India, Pakistan | |
| Russian | Countries of the former USSR and Eastern Europe | |
| English | USA, UK, Europe, Canada, South America, Africa, Australia | |
| German | Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy | |
| French | France, Tunisia, Monaco, Canada, Algeria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg | |
| Portuguese | Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Macau | |
| Bengali | Bengal, India, Bangladesh | |
|
Altai |
Tatar | Tatarstan, Russia, Ukraine |
| Mongolian | Mongolia, China | |
| Azerbaijani | Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, countries of Central Asia | |
| Turkish | Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Romania, USA, France, Sweden | |
| Bashkir | Bashkorstan, Tatarstan, Urdmutia, Russia. | |
| Kyrgyz | Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, China | |
| Ural | Hungarian | Hungary, Ukraine, Serbia, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia |
| Mordovian | Mordovia, Russia, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan | |
| Evenk | Russia, China, Mongolia | |
| Finnish | Finland, Sweden, Norway, Karelia | |
| Karelian | Karelia, Finland | |
| Caucasian | Georgian | Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran |
| Abkhazian | Abkhazia, Turkey, Russia, Syria, Iraq | |
| Chechen |
Chechnya, Ingushetia, Georgia, Dagestan |
|
| Chinese-Tibetan | Chinese | China, Taiwan, Singapore |
| Thai | Thailand | |
| Lao | Laos, Thailand, | |
| Siamese | Thailand | |
| Tibetan | Tibet, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan | |
| Burmese | Myanmar (Burma) | |
| African-Asian | Arabic | Arab countries, Iraq, Israel, Chad, Somalia, |
| Hebrew | ||
| Barbary | Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Niger, Egypt, Mauritania |
This table shows that the languages of the same family can be distributed in various countries and parts of the world. And the very concept of "language families" was introduced to facilitate the classification of languages and the compilation of their genealogical tree. The most widespread and numerous is the Indo-European family of languages. Peoples who speak the languages of the Indo-European family can be found in any hemisphere of the Earth, in any part of the world, on any continent and in any country. There are also languages that are not included in any language family. These are dead languages and artificial.
If we talk about the territory of Russia, then there are a variety of language families. The country is inhabited by people of more than 150 different nationalities, who can consider their mother tongue from almost every language family. The territorial language families of Russia are distributed depending on which country a particular region borders on, which language is most common in the country bordering the region.
Some nationalities have occupied a certain territory since ancient times. And at first glance it may seem strange why these particular language families and languages predominate in this region. But there is nothing strange in this. In ancient times, people's migrations were determined by the search for new hunting grounds, new lands for agriculture, and some tribes simply led a nomadic lifestyle.
The forced resettlement of entire peoples during the Soviet era also plays a significant role. Most fully represented in Russialanguages from the Indo-European, Uralic, Caucasian and Altaic families. The Indo-European family occupies Western and Central Russia. Representatives of the Uralic family of languages live mainly in the north-west of the country. The northeast and southern regions are predominantly occupied by the Altaic language groups. Caucasian languages are represented mainly in the territory lying between the Black and Caspian Seas.
