The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects^[1], including most of the major languages of Europe, the northern Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and much of Central Asia. The Indo-European (Indo refers to the Indian subcontinent) family has the largest numbers of speakers of the recognised families of languages in the world today, with its languages spoken by approximately three billion native speakers.^[2]

History of the Indo-European Theory

Suggestions of similarities between Indian and European languages began to be made by European visitors to India in the sixteenth century. In 1583 Thomas Stephens, an English Jesuit missionary in Goa, noted similarities between Indian languages, specifically Konkani, and Greek and Latin. These observations were included in a letter to his brother which was not published until the twentieth century.^[3]

The first account to mention Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti (born in Florence, Italy in 1540 AD), a Florentine merchant who traveled to the Indian subcontinent and was among the first European observers to study the ancient Indian language, Sanskrit. Writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian (e.g. deva/dio 'God', sarpa/serpe 'snake', sapta/sette 'seven', ashta/otto 'eight', nava/nove 'nine').^[3] However, neither Stephens' nor Sassetti's observations led to further scholarly inquiry.^[3]

In 1647 Dutch linguist and scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn noted the similarity among Indo-European languages, and supposed the existence of a primitive common language which he called "Scythian". He included in his hypothesis Dutch, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic and Baltic languages. However, the suggestions of Van Boxhorn did not become widely known and did not stimulate further research.

The hypothesis re-appeared in 1786 when Sir William Jones first lectured on similarities between four of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Systematic comparison of these and other old languages conducted by Franz Bopp supported this theory, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar, appearing between 1833 and 1852, counts as the starting-point of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline.

Classification

Indo-European language family.

1. Anatolian languages, earliest attested branch. Isolated terms in Old Assyrian sources from the 19th century BC, Hittite texts from about the 16th century BC; extinct by Late Antiquity.
2. Greek language, fragmentary records in Mycenaean from the late 15th - early 14th century BC; Homeric traditions date to the 8th century BC. (See Proto-Greek language, History of the Greek language.)
3. Indo-Iranian languages, descending from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian
   • Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, attested (via oral tradititon) from about the mid 2nd millennium BC (Rigveda). Epigraphically from the 3rd century BC.
   • Iranian languages, attested from roughly 1000 BC in the form of Avestan. Epigraphically from 520 BC in the form of Old Persian (Behistun inscription)
   • Dardic languages
   • Nuristani languages
4. Italic languages, including Latin and its descendants (the Romance languages), attested from the 7th century BC.
5. Celtic languages, descended from Proto-Celtic. Gaulish inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Old Irish manuscript tradition from about the 8th century AD.
6. Germanic languages (from Proto-Germanic), earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century AD. Old English manuscript tradition from about the 8th century.
7. Armenian language, attested from the 5th century AD.
8. Tocharian languages, extant in two dialects, attested from roughly the 6th to the 9th century AD. Marginalized by the Old Turkic Uyghur Khaganate and likely extinct by the 10th century.
9. Balto-Slavic languages, believed by many Indo-Europeanists^[4] to form from a phylogenetic unit, while a minority ascribes similarities to prolongued language contact.
   • Slavic languages (from Proto-Slavic), attested from the 9th century, earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
   • Baltic languages, attested from the 14th century, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European.
10. Albanian language, attested from the 15th century; Proto-Albanian likely emerged from "Paleo-Balkanic" predecessors.

In addition to the classical ten branches listed above, several extinct and little-known languages have existed:

• Illyrian languages ? possibly related to Messapian or Venetic; relation to Albanian also proposed.
• Venetic language ? close to Italic.
• Liburnian language ? apparently grouped with Venetic.
• Messapian language ? not conclusively deciphered.
• Phrygian language ? language of ancient Phrygia, possibly close to Greek, Thracian, or Armenian.
• Paionian language ? extinct language once spoken north of Macedon.
• Thracian language ? possibly close to Dacian.
• Dacian language ? possibly close to Thracian or to Albanian ? or both.
• Ancient Macedonian language ? related to Greek; some propose relationships to Illyrian, Thracian or Phrygian.
• Ligurian language ? possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic.
• Lusitanian language ? possibly related to (or part of) Celtic, or Ligurian, or Italic.

Grouping

Of the top 20 contemporary languages in terms of native speakers according to SIL Ethnologue, 12 are Indo-European: Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, German, Marathi, French, Italian, Punjabi and Urdu, accounting for over 1.6 billion native speakers.^[5]

Membership of this languages in the Indo-European language family and branches, groups and subgroups thereof, is determined by a genetic relationship, defined by shared innovations which are presumed to have taken place in a common ancestor. For example, what makes Germanic languages "Germanic" is that large parts of the structures of all the languages so designated can be stated just once for all of them. In other words, they can be treated as an innovation that took place in Proto-Germanic, the source of all the Germanic languages.

Exempted from this concept are shared innovations acquired by borrowing or other means of convergence), that can not be considered genetic. It has been asserted, for example, that many of the more striking features shared by Italic languages (Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, etc.) might well be "areal features". More certainly, very similar-looking alterations in the systems of long vowels in the West Germanic languages greatly postdate any possible notion of a proto-language innovation (and cannot readily be regarded as "areal", either, since English and continental West Germanic were not a linguistic area). In a similar vein, there are many similar innovations in Germanic and Baltic/Slavic that are far more likely to be areal features than traceable to a common proto-language, such as the uniform development of a high vowel (*u in the case of Germanic, *i/u in the case of Baltic and Slavic) before the PIE syllabic resonants *?,* ?, *?, *?, unique to these two groups among IE languages. The Balkan sprachbund even features areal convergence that comprise very different branches.

The Indo-Iranian languages form the largest sub-branch of Indo-European in terms of the number of native speakers as well as in terms of the number of individual languages.

Proposed subgroupings

Specialists have postulated the existence of such subfamilies (subgroups) as Germanic with Slavic, Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Aryan. The vogue for such subgroups waxes and wanes; Italo-Celtic for example used to be a standard subgroup of Indo-European, but it is now little honored, in part because much of the evidence on which it was based has turned out to have been misinterpreted.

Subgroupings of the Indo European languages are commonly held to reflect genetic relationships and linguistic change. The generic differentiation of Proto-Indo-European into dialects and languages happened hand in hand with language contact and the spread of innovations over different territories.

Rather than being entirely genetic, the grouping of satem languages is commonly inferred as an innovative change that occurred just once, and subsequently spread over a large cohesive territory or PIE continuum that affected all but the peripheral areas.^[6] For instance, Kortlandt proposes this satemization process involved interaction between a western and central Indo-European sphere of influence to the ancestors of Balts and Slavs.^[7]

Shared features of Phrygian and Greek ^[8] and of Thracian and Armenian ^[9] group the southeastern branches of Indo European together. Some fundamental shared features, like the verbal aorist category (this is a verb form denoting action without reference to duration or completion) having the perfect active particle -s fixed to the stem, link this group closer to Anatolian languages^[10] and Tocharian. Shared features with Baltic and Slavic languages, on the other hand (especially present and preterit formations), might be due to later contacts.^[11]

The Indo-Hittite hypothesis proposes the Indo European language family to consist of two main branches: one represented by the Anatolian languages and another branch encompassing all other Indo European languages. Features that separate Anatolian from all other branches of Indo-European (such as the gender or the verb system) have been interpreted alternately as archaic debris or as innovations due to prolonged isolation. Points proffered in favour of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis are the (non-universal) Indo-European agricultural terminology in Anatolia^[12] and the preservation of laryngeals.^[13] However, in general this hypothesis is considered to attribute too much weight to the Anatolian evidence. According to another view the Anatolian subgroup left the Indo-European parent language comparatively late, approximately at the same time as Indo-Iranian and later than the Greek or Armenian divisions. A third view, especially prevalent in the so-called French school of Indo-European studies, holds that extant similarities in non-satem languages in general - including Anatolian - might be due to their peripheral location in the Indo-European language area and early separation, rather than indicating a special ancestral relationship.^[14] Holm (2008)^[15] based on lexical calculations arrives at a picture roughly replicating scholarly communis opinio.

Satem and centum languages

Diachronic map showing the Centum (blue) and Satem (red) areas. The supposed area of origin of satemization is shown in darker red (Sintashta/Abashevo/Srubna cultures).

Many scholars use the terms Centum and Satem to describe the different treatment of the three original sets of velar consonants, there being groups of labiovelar, velar and palatalized velar consonants in PIE. Satem languages (Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic) lost the distinction between labiovelar and pure velar sounds, and at the same time assibilated the palatal velars. The Centum languages (Germanic, Italic, and Celtic), on the other hand, changed the palatal velars to be the same as pure velars.

Note that the terms "Centum" or "Satem" do not imply a claim of monophyly, ie. that Centum languages descend from a "proto-Centum" or that languages exhibiting Satem features descend from a "proto-Satem". Most modern scholars see the Satem sound change as an areal feature radiating outward from the central Indo-European language communities, but largely failing to reach the western and eastern peripheries.

The Satem-Centum isogloss runs right between the Greek (Centum) and Armenian (Satem) languages (which a number of scholars regard as closely related), with Greek exhibiting some marginal Satem features. Some scholars think that some languages classify neither as Satem nor as Centum (Anatolian, Tocharian, and possibly Albanian).

Areal contact among already distinct post-PIE languages (say, during the 3rd millennium BC) may have spread the sound changes involved. In any case, present-day specialists are rather less galvanized by the division than 19th cent. scholars were, partly because of the recognition that it is, after all, just one isogloss among the multitudes that criss-cross Indo-European linguistic geography.

Suggested superfamilies

Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages form part of a hypothetical Nostratic language superfamily, and attempt to relate Indo-European to other language families, such as South Caucasian languages, Altaic languages, Uralic languages, Dravidian languages, and Afro-Asiatic languages. This theory remains controversial, like the similar Eurasiatic theory of Joseph Greenberg, and the Proto-Pontic postulation of John Colarusso. There are no possible theoretical objections to the existence of such superfamilies; the difficulty comes in finding concrete evidence that transcends chance resemblance and wishful thinking. The main problem for all of them is that in historical linguistics the noise-to-signal ratio steadily increases over time, and at great enough time-depths it becomes open to reasonable doubt that it can even be possible to tell what is signal and what is noise.

Historical evolution

Proto-Indo-European

The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar (1833) to August Schleicher's 1861 Compendium and up to Karl Brugmann's Grundriss published from the 1880s. Brugmann's junggrammatische re-evaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussure's development of the laryngeal theory may be considered the beginning of "contemporary" Indo-European studies. The generation of Indo-Europeanists active in the last third of the 20th century (such as Calvert Watkins, Jochem Schindler and Helmut Rix) developed a better understanding of morphology and, in the wake of Kury?owicz's 1956 Apophonie, understanding of the ablaut. From the 1960s, knowledge of Anatolian became certain enough to establish its relationship to PIE. Using the method of internal reconstruction an earlier stage, called Pre-Proto-Indo-European, has been proposed.

PIE was an inflected language, in which the grammatical relationships between words were signaled through inflectional morphemes (usually endings). The roots of PIE are basic morphemes carrying a lexical meaning. By addition of suffixes, they form stems, and by addition of desinences (usually endings), these form grammatically inflected words (nouns or verbs). The hypothetical Indo-European verb system is complex and, like the noun, exhibits a system of ablaut.

Diversification

The diversification of the parent language into the attested branches of daughter languages is historically unattested. The timeline of the evolution of the various daughter languages, on the other hand, is mostly undisputed, quite regardless of the question of Indo-European origins.

mid 2nd millennium BC distribution

mid 1st millennium BC distribution

post- Roman Empire and Migrations period distribution

late medieval distribution (after Islamic, Hungarian and Turkic expansions)

• 2500–2000: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects is complete. Proto-Greek is spoken in the Balkans, Proto-Indo-Iranian north of the Caspian in the emerging Andronovo culture. The Bronze Age reaches Central Europe with the Beaker culture, likely composed of various Centum dialects. The Tarim mummies possibly correspond to proto-Tocharians.
• 2000–1500: Catacomb culture north of the black sea. The chariot is invented, leading to the split and rapid spread of Iranian and Indo-Aryan from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex over much of Central Asia, Northern India, Iran and Eastern Anatolia. Proto-Anatolian is split into Hittite and Luwian. The pre-Proto-Celtic Unetice culture has an active metal industry (Nebra skydisk).
• 1500–1000: The Nordic Bronze Age develops pre-Proto-Germanic, and the (pre)-Proto-Celtic Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the Iron Age. Migration of the Proto-Italians into the Italian peninsula (Bagnolo stele). Redaction of the Rigveda and rise of the Vedic civilization in the Punjab. The Mycenaean civilization gives way to the Greek Dark Ages.
• 1000 BC–500 BC: The Celtic languages spread over Central and Western Europe. Proto Germanic. Homer and the beginning of Classical Antiquity. The Vedic Civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Zoroaster composes the Gathas, rise of the Achaemenid Empire, replacing the Elamites and Babylonia. Separation of Proto-Italic into Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Faliscan. Genesis of the Greek and Old Italic alphabets. A variety of Paleo-Balkan languages are spoken in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages are extinct.
• 500 BC–1 BC/AD: Classical Antiquity: spread of Greek and Latin throughout the Mediterranean, and during Hellenism (Indo-Greeks) to Central Asia and the Hindukush. Kushan Empire, Mauryan Empire. Proto-Germanic.
• 1 BC/AD–AD 500: Late Antiquity, Gupta period; attestation of Armenian. Proto-Slavic. The Roman Empire and then the Great Migrations marginalize the Celtic languages to the British Isles.
• AD 500–1000: Early Middle Ages. The Viking Age forms an Old Norse koine spanning Scandinavia, the British Isles and Iceland. The Islamic conquest and the Turkic expansion results in the Arabization and Turkification of significant areas where Indo-European languages were spoken. Tocharian is extinct in the course of the Turkic expansion while Northeastern Iranian (Scytho-Sarmatian) is reduced to small refugia.
• AD 1000–1500: Late Middle Ages: Attestation of Albanian and Baltic languages. The emerging Russian Empire brings an eastward spread of East Slavic.
• AD 1500–2000: Early Modern period to present: Colonialism results in the spread of Indo-European languages to every continent, most notably Romance (South America, French Canada, North Africa), West Germanic (English in North America, South Asia and Australia; to a lesser extent Dutch and German), and Russian to the Russian Far East.

Sound changes

As the Proto-Indo-European language broke up, its sound system diverged as well, changing according to various sound laws evidenced in the daughter-languages. Notable cases of such sound laws include Grimm's law in Proto-Germanic, loss of prevocalic *p- in Proto-Celtic, loss of prevocalic *s- in Proto-Greek, Brugmann's law in Proto-Indo-Iranian, as well as satemization (discussed above). Grassmann's law and Bartholomae's law may or may not have operated at the common Indo-European stage.

See also

• Grammatical conjugation
• Indo-European copula
• Indo-European sound laws
• Indo-European studies
• Language family
• List of common Indo-European roots
• List of Indo-European languages
• Proto-Indo-European language
• Nostratic languages

Citations and notes

References

• Auroux, Sylvain, History of the Language Sciences, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2000 ISBN 3110167352.
• Kortlandt, Frederik, 1990, The Spread of the Indo-Europeans, Journal of Indo-European Studies, 18.1-2: 131-140
• Lubotsky, A., The Old Phrygian Areyastis-inscription, Kadmos 27, 9-26, 1988
• Kortlandt, Frederik , The Thraco-Armenian consonant shift, Linguistique Balkanique 31, 71-74, 1988
• Lane, George S., Adams, Douglas Q., The Tocharian problem, Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol.22, Helen Hemingway Benton Publisher, Chicago, (15th ed.) 1981
• Renfrew, C., The Anatolian origins of Proto-Indo-European and the autochthony of the Hittites. In R. Drews ed., Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite language family, Institute for the Study of Man, Washington, DC, 2001
• Houwink ten Cate, H.J., Melchert, H. Craig and van den Hout, Theo P.J. Indo-European languages, The parent language, Laryngeal theory, Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol.22, Helen Hemingway Benton Publisher, Chicago, (15th ed.) 1981
• Holm, Hans J., The Distribution of Data in Word Lists and its Impact on the Subgrouping of Languages, in Christine Preisach, Hans Burkhardt, Lars Schmidt-Thieme, Reinhold Decker (eds.), Data Analysis, Machine Learning, and Applications, Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the German Classification Society (GfKl), University of Freiburg, March 7-9, 2007, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg-Berlin, 2008

Recommended readings

• Chakrabarti, Byomkes (1994). A comparative study of Santali and Bengali. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co. ISBN 8170741289
• Mallory, J.P., (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27616-1
• Renfrew, Colin (1987). Archaeology & Language. The Puzzle of the Indo-European Origins. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-02495-7
• Schleicher, August, A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages (1861/62).
• Remys, Edmund, General distinguishing features of various Indo-European languages and their relationship to Lithuanian. Berlin, New York: Indogermanische Forschungen, Vol. 112, 2007.

External links

Databases

• The Indo-European Database(Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (IEED))
• IE language family overview (SIL)
• Indo-European at the LLOW-database
• Indo-European Documentation Center at the University of Texas at Austin
• TITUS(English Startpage) Collection of IE scholarly materials
• The Indo-European Database A site of joint resource of Indo-European languages, history, archaeology and religion.

Lexicon

• Indo-European Roots, from the American Heritage Dictionary.
• Early Indo-European Loanwords Preserved in Finnish.

Images

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