Indo-European Family. The Greek language is one of a group of related languages called the Indo-European language family. This family gets its name from the fact that it includes most of the languages of ancient and modern Europe, including Greek, Latin, and English as well as some languages of central and southern Asia as far east as the Indian Subcontinent. Hindi, Pashto (the main language of modern Afghanistan), and Farsi (Iran) are all members of the family. In ancient times Sanskrit (the language of sacred Hindu writings) and the language of the ancient Persians were Indo-European.

Origins. How related languages came to be spoken in such far-flung places is a mystery, since it is something that occurred in the prehistoric period, long before any of these languages had writing systems that might have been used to record the movements of the people who...