History of world language

Question

If we look at world history—I am speaking a little vaguely, since it is not possible to be completely accurate. The human race began from a single region, as you can see in the bottom image.

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What kind of effect did these migrations have on language?

The first humans that were in Africa had to use some kind of language for communication, and when these people migrated from Africa to European regions, the migrants created new languages. Now, what I am wondering, since they were not expert linguistics, the languages that developed in these regions must have some kind of influence from their predecessor.

If we look at the languages that exist today, they differ greatly from other regions—here I am talking about the root languages (I am not sure "root language" is the right word here, if someone knows the right word then please edit it.), like Latin, Sanskrit, etc.

So how did these changes occur? The reason why I am interested in this is, I am creating cultures from languages, you can say the influence of language on culture. The first language, Vietrian, splits in two to create Old Viereian and New Vietrian. The basic difference is: "old" is used for spells making, and "new" is used for communication, this also vague since it is a five-page long difference. New Vietrian was enchanted so that the listener listens to it in their mother-tounges. This new language was passed down as "Zirian". From Zirian, every language emerges, except for Necromancers and Elves.

Answer 1

No language (present company excluded) is created. All languages change over time, and as parts of the same language get separated geographically (or socially), they diverge. At some point they have diverged so much that they become separate languages (after having been different dialects/sociolects of the same language).

In fact, there are no 'languages': all there is is the capability of an individual to transfer mental phenomena/thoughts into speech, and the reverse capability of transferring speech back into thoughts. This is negotiated by individuals, and if they can successfully communicate, they speak the same 'language'. My speech changes when I always speak with the same group of people, and when I then meet someone from another group I haven't seen for a while, communication might be more difficult, as we use different words or pronounce words differently.

Some languages get preserved, mainly for ritualistic reasons: if you believe that your words invoke magic, or address a deity, you are careful about not changing this, as the words might lose their power. This relates to your 'old' variant. A writing system also helps to ossify a language, so Latin and Ancient Greek still exist (but notice how modern Greek and all the Romance languages have evolved from them).

Languages are commonly traced back to proto-languages (like indo-european), but a lot of this is conjecture, and made difficult by the lack of evidence (spoken variants are not usually preserved over time).

So languages differ if they are isolated from each other. Geography is a strong factor, so mountain villages often have their own dialects. Similarly with islands (though trade would then link them up again). Social class is also important: if peasants don't talk to knights or aristocrats, their language (sociolects) will grow apart. A writing system (if there is sufficient literacy) might slow that down, especially use of different words, while purely spoken languages would diverge faster between separate groups. Isolated countries are also different from countries that are well-connected with their neighbours. Shared culture also preserves linguistic coherence.

On the other hand, social factors can also play a role: you might want to imitate a higher-prestige sociolect, and your language then changes as well. Many learners of English want to speak with a British accent, but are mostly exposed to American English through films etc, so they might speak a mixture of American and British English. These might then become different dialects and eventually languages (though English-speaking cultural domination would preserve some cohesiveness here).

So there are plenty of options for you to decide how and why your languages diverge, based on the civilisation you want to model.