1. A group of Indo-European languages characterized by the palatalization of certain consonants, including most European languages such as English, Latin, and Germanic languages.
Usage: linguistics; comparative historical linguistics

Examples

• English is classified as a centum language because of how it evolved from Proto-Indo-European.
• The centum languages include Romance, Germanic, and Celtic language families.
• Linguists distinguish between centum and satem languages based on consonant shifts.
• Latin, as a centum language, shows characteristics typical of western Indo-European branches.
• The term centum comes from the Latin word for 'hundred,' reflecting the pronunciation in that language family.