Standard Average European

Under Standard Average European ( to German: Standard Average European, also SAE languages ​​called ) refers to a European language federal government, ie, a group of European languages ​​that are similar in a number of language structure characteristics, although they are not necessarily related to one another, ie, from the same original language have emerged. These include:

• The distinction between indefinite and definite article (eg German a / an: of / / the ) ( exceptions among the European languages: only a certain article to know the Icelandic, Irish, Welsh, Bulgarian and Maltese, no articles know the Slavic languages ​​except Bulgarian, the languages ​​of the Baltic and Finnish )
• The formation of relative clauses, which are affected by the noun and with a variable relative pronoun (eg German of / / the / which / what / which, english who, whose, splat ) are introduced ( sometimes are in addition also constructions with invariable relative pronoun possible) ( exceptions among the European languages: the Celtic languages ​​, Basque and Maltese )
• Have a design with or as a way of past conditions (eg, I have said German ) ( exceptions among the European languages: the Celtic languages ​​with the exception of Breton, the Slavic languages ​​, the Baltic languages ​​, Hungarian and Maltese )
• A passive construction in which is the object of the action to the subject of the sentence and the past participle is combined with an auxiliary verb (eg, the German wine is drunk ) ( exceptions among the European languages: Welsh, Finnish and Estonian )

The emergence of these similarities is associated with the migration of peoples in connection that is as it were at the beginning of European civilization (see also the discussion under € linguistics). This is called the SAE languages ​​therefore Charlemagne Sprachbund ( Charlemagne = engl. / Frz. Karl the Great).