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So many people are under the impression that the Slavic tongues are wholly alien to the other languages of Europe that a brief statement of what groups constitute the Indo-European family of languages will not be amiss. This family includes eight main branches each of which has several sub-divisions. The first or Aryan includes the Indian and the Iranian and those in turn have sub-divisions which are represented by the Sanskrit, the Zend and the old and modern Persian. The second is the Armenian branch. The third is the Hellenic, which includes all the ancient Greek dialects as well as modern Greek. The fourth is the Albanian branch spoken in ancient Illyria and in modern Albania. The fifth is the Italic branch represented by the Latin and other dead dialects and by the modern Romance languages, as French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. The sixth is the Celtic branch with sub-divisions of the Gallic, Brittanic and Gaelic and those in their turn represented by the Cornish, Irish, Scotch-Gaelic and Manx. The seventh branch of the Indo-European family is the Teutonic which embraces three main groups, the Gothic, now extinct; the Norse, including the Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and the Icelandic; the West Germanic, which is represented by the German, the Saxon, Flemish, Dutch, Low Franconian, Frisian and English. The eighth branch is the Slavonic,