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Standard Average European (SAE) is a concept originally introduced in 1936 by American linguistBenjamin Whorf to group the modernIndo-Europeanlanguages of Europe with shared common features.[1] Whorf argued that the SAElanguages were characterized by a number of similarities, includingsyntax andgrammar,vocabulary and its use, as well as the relationship between contrasting words and their origins, idioms, and word order, which all made them stand out from many other language groups around the world which do not share these similarities, in essence creating a continentalsprachbund. His intention was to argue that the disproportionate amount of SAE-specific knowledge inlinguistics created a substantial SAE-centric bias, leading togeneralization errors, such as mistaking linguistic features idiosyncratic to the SAElanguage group for universal tendencies.
Whorf contrasted what he called theSAE tense system (which contrasts past, present and future tenses) with that of theHopi language of North America, which Whorf analyzed as being based on a distinction not oftense, but on things that havein fact occurred (arealis mood encompassing SAE past and present) compared to things that haveasyet not occurred, but which may or may not occur in the future (irrealis mood). The accuracy of Whorf's analysis of Hopi tense later becamea point of controversy in linguistics.
Whorf likely consideredRomance andWest Germanic to form the core of the SAE, i.e. theliterary languages ofEurope which have seen substantial cultural influence fromLatin during themedieval period. TheNorth Germanic andBalto-Slavic languages tend to be more peripheral members.
Alexander Gode, who was instrumental in the development ofInterlingua, characterized it as "Standard Average European".[2] The Romance,Germanic, andSlavic control languages of Interlingua are reflective of the language groups most often included in the SAESprachbund.
According toHaspelmath (2001), the SAE languages form aSprachbund characterized by the following features, sometimes called "euroversals" by analogy withlinguistic universals:[3]
Besides these features, which are uncommon outside Europe and thus useful for defining the SAE area, Haspelmath (2001) lists further features characteristic of European languages (but also found elsewhere):
TheSprachbund defined this way consists of the following languages:[3]
TheBalkan sprachbund is thus included as a subset of the larger SAE, while Baltic Eastern Europe is a coordinate member.
Not all the languages listed above show all the listed features, so membership in SAE can be described as gradient. Based on nine of the above-mentioned common features, Haspelmath regards French and German as forming thenucleus of theSprachbund, surrounded by acore formed by English, the other Romance languages, the Nordic languages, and the Western and Southern Slavic languages. Hungarian, the Baltic languages, the Eastern Slavic languages, and theFinnic languages form more peripheral groups.[4] All languages identified by Haspelmath as core SAE areIndo-European languages, except Hungarian and the Finnic languages. However, not all Indo-European languages are SAE languages: theCeltic,Armenian, andIndo-Iranian languages remain outside the SAESprachbund.[3]
The Standard Average EuropeanSprachbund is most likely the result of ongoinglanguage contact beginning in the time of theMigration Period.[3] Inheritance of the SAE features fromProto-Indo-European can be ruled out because Proto-Indo-European, as currently reconstructed, lacked most of the SAE features.[4] Furthermore, in some cases younger forms of a language do have an SAE feature which attested older forms lack; for example,Latin does not have a periphrastic perfect, but modernRomance languages such as Spanish and French do. Much of the area of SAE was at various times part of theRoman Empire or the vague concept of a political entity calledChristendom and thus affected by the religious, political and ideological discourse of these entities and their respectivesphere of influence. This discourse and long distance communication among elites generally took place in one of thelinguas francas of the era –Koine Greek andClassical Latin inLate Antiquity,Medieval Latin in the Middle Ages and finally in the modern eraModern Latin gradually being replaced by vernaculars such as modern French, German and – in the 20th and 21st century – increasingly English. These languages have leftlearned borrowings (also known asinkhorn terms) in theprestige variants of almost all European languages and continue to provideloanwords,calques andidioms.
(quotation pp. 77–78) and as Whorf, B. L.The work began to assume the character of a comparison betweenHopi and western European languages. It also became evident that even the grammar of Hopi bore a relation to Hopi culture, and the grammar of European tongues to our own "Western" or "European" culture. And it appeared that the interrelation brought in those large subsummations of experience by language, such as our own terms "time," "space," "substance," and "matter." Since, with respect to the traits compared, there is little difference betweenEnglish,French,German, or otherEuropean languages with the 'possible' (but doubtful) exception ofBalto-Slavic andnon-Indo-European, I have lumped these languages into one group called SAE, or "Standard Average European."