1. Latin: This is the most well-known example. Latin, the ancestor of Romance languages like Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, is a centum language.
2. Greek: Ancient Greek and its modern descendants like Modern Greek are centum languages.
3. German: The Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, and Swedish, are centum languages.
What are centum languages?
"Centum" refers to a linguistic feature that distinguishes certain Indo-European languages from others. This feature relates to the way certain sounds, specifically the palatal stops, developed in different language families.
* Centum languages changed the palatal stops *k, g, ǵ* to sounds like *k, g, gh*.
* Satem languages (like Sanskrit, Persian, and Slavic languages) changed these same sounds to *s, z, zh*.
The term "centum" comes from the Latin word for "hundred", as the word for "hundred" in these languages started with a *k* sound. "Satem" comes from the Sanskrit word for "hundred," which started with an *s* sound.