This image shows the many cousins of the English word “ten”.
Around the outside are 64 living Indo-European languages and their words for 10.
Within are the words for “ten” in historic languages, going back all the way to Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥.
The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language was spoken around 6000 years ago, somewhere on the border between Europe and Asia. Since then, the language has spread and split up into many different languages in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Now, nearly half the world speaks an Indo-European language.
Because all these hundreds of Indo-European languages are related, many of their words are related too. The words these languages use for numbers are a good way to show this, as words for numbers tend to be conserved well, without being swapped with other words.
These words have been passed down through the millennia, and over time they have mutated into the words used in the 445 or so Indo-European languages spoken today. Of course I couldn’t make an image with that many languages, so I picked these 64 living languages, and 50 or so historic ones, to show how all these words for “ten” relate.
Others in this this series:
Indo-European words for tongue
and the smaller, rougher image I made a while ago: Indo-European words for two