Here's why:
* Geographic Spread: Indo-European languages are spoken across vast regions of Europe, Asia, and the Americas. They are found in countries like India, Russia, the United States, and Brazil.
* Number of Speakers: Indo-European languages are spoken by over 3 billion people, representing roughly 46% of the world's population.
* Influence: Many languages outside the Indo-European family have been influenced by it, including languages in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.
Some of the major branches of the Indo-European language family include:
* Indo-Aryan: Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati
* Romance: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian
* Germanic: English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish
* Slavic: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian
* Celtic: Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Breton
* Iranian: Persian, Kurdish, Pashto
* Balto-Slavic: Lithuanian, Latvian
This widespread distribution is due to historical factors like migrations, conquests, and the influence of colonial powers.