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* ] — possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic. * ] — possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic.
* ] — possibly related to (or part of) Celtic, or Ligurian, or Italic. * ] — possibly related to (or part of) Celtic, or Ligurian, or Italic.

===Grouping===
No doubt other Indo-European languages once existed which have now vanished without leaving a trace.
{{offtopic}}

{{splitsection|Language family}}
A large majority of ] can be considered Indo-European, at least in content. Examples include

* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

Membership of languages in the same language family is determined by the presence of '''shared retentions''', i.e., features of the proto-language (or reflexes of such features) that cannot be explained better by chance or borrowing (convergence). Membership in a branch/group/subgroup '''within''' a language family is determined 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. Membership of languages in the same language family is determined by the presence of '''shared retentions''', i.e., features of the proto-language (or reflexes of such features) that cannot be explained better by chance or borrowing (convergence). Membership in a branch/group/subgroup '''within''' a language family is determined 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.


A problem, however, is that shared innovations can be acquired by borrowing or other means. 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 *''ṛ,* ḷ, *ṃ, *ṇ'', unique to these two groups among IE languages. But legitimate uncertainty about whether shared innovations are areal features, coincidence, or inheritance from a common ancestor, leads to disagreement over the proper subdivisions of any large language family. Thus specialists have postulated the existence of such subfamilies (subgroups) as Germanic with Slavic, ] and ]. The vogue for such subgroups waxes and wanes (Italo-Celtic for example used to be an absolutely standard feature of the Indo-European landscape; nowadays it is little honored, in part because much of the striking evidence on the basis of which it was postulated has turned out to have been misinterpreted). A problem, however, is that shared innovations can be acquired by borrowing or other means. 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 *''ṛ,* ḷ, *ṃ, *ṇ'', unique to these two groups among IE languages. But legitimate uncertainty about whether shared innovations are areal features, coincidence, or inheritance from a common ancestor, leads to disagreement over the proper subdivisions of any large language family.


===Proposed subgroupings===
Specialists have postulated the existence of such subfamilies (subgroups) as Germanic with Slavic, ] and ]. The vogue for such subgroups waxes and wanes (Italo-Celtic for example used to be an absolutely standard feature of the Indo-European landscape; nowadays it is little honored, in part because much of the striking evidence on the basis of which it was postulated has turned out to have been misinterpreted).
{{splitsection|Indo-Hittite}}
] refers to the theory that Indo-European (sensu stricto, i.e. the proto-language of the Indo-European languages known before the discovery of Hittite), and Proto-Anatolian, split from a common proto-language called Proto-Indo-Hittite by its first theoretician, Edgar Sturtevant. Validation of such a theory would consist of identifying formal-functional structures that can be coherently reconstructed for both branches but which can only be traced to a formal-functional structure that is either (a) different from both or else (b) shows evidence of a very early, group-wide innovation. As an example of (a), it is obvious that the Indo-European perfect subsystem in the verbs is '''formally''' superimposable on the Hittite ''ḫi''-verb subsystem, but there is no match-up functionally, such that (as has been held) the functional source must have been unlike both Hittite and Indo-European. As an example of (b), the solidly-reconstructable Indo-European deictic pronoun paradigm whose nominatives singular are *''so, *sā'' (*seH₂), ''*tod'' has been compared to a collection of clause-marking particles in Hittite, the argument being that the coalescence of these particles into the familiar Indo-European paradigm was an innovation of that branch of Proto-Indo-Hittite. ] refers to the theory that Indo-European (sensu stricto, i.e. the proto-language of the Indo-European languages known before the discovery of Hittite), and Proto-Anatolian, split from a common proto-language called Proto-Indo-Hittite by its first theoretician, Edgar Sturtevant. Validation of such a theory would consist of identifying formal-functional structures that can be coherently reconstructed for both branches but which can only be traced to a formal-functional structure that is either (a) different from both or else (b) shows evidence of a very early, group-wide innovation. As an example of (a), it is obvious that the Indo-European perfect subsystem in the verbs is '''formally''' superimposable on the Hittite ''ḫi''-verb subsystem, but there is no match-up functionally, such that (as has been held) the functional source must have been unlike both Hittite and Indo-European. As an example of (b), the solidly-reconstructable Indo-European deictic pronoun paradigm whose nominatives singular are *''so, *sā'' (*seH₂), ''*tod'' has been compared to a collection of clause-marking particles in Hittite, the argument being that the coalescence of these particles into the familiar Indo-European paradigm was an innovation of that branch of Proto-Indo-Hittite.


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==Historical evolution== ==Historical evolution==
⚫ ===Proto-Indo-European===
⚫ {{main|Proto-Indo-European language}}

⚫ The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the ]. The classical phase of Indo-European ] leads from ]'s ''Comparative Grammar'' (1833) to ]'s ] ''Compendium'' and up to ]'s '']'' published from the ]. Brugmann's '']'' re-evaluation of the field and ]'s development of the ] 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 ], ] and ]) developed a better understanding of morphology and, in the wake of ]'s ] ''Apophonie'', understanding of the ]. From the 1960s, knowledge of Anatolian became certain enough to establish its relationship to PIE. Using the method of ] an earlier stage, called ], has been proposed.

⚫ PIE was an ], in which the grammatical relationships between words were signaled through inflectional morphemes (usually endings). The ] of PIE are basic ]s carrying a ] meaning. By addition of ]es, they form ], and by addition of ]s (usually endings), these form grammatically inflected words (]s or ]s).
⚫ The ] system is complex and, as the noun, exhibits a system of ].


===Sound changes=== ===Sound changes===
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The earliest attestations of Indo-European languages date to the early 2nd millennium BC. At that time, the languages were already diversified and widely distributed, so that "loss of contact" between the individual dialects is accepted to have taken place before 2500 BC.<ref>], ''Comparative Linguistics. Current Trends of Linguistics'', Den Haag (1972)</ref> There are several theories as to how Indo-European expanded, the first originating in the 19th century and its most recent form being the "Kurgan" theory. Competing scenarios for the early history of Indo-European are largely compatible for times after 2500 BC, even if they are incommensurable for the 4th millennium BC and earlier. The earliest attestations of Indo-European languages date to the early 2nd millennium BC. At that time, the languages were already diversified and widely distributed, so that "loss of contact" between the individual dialects is accepted to have taken place before 2500 BC.<ref>], ''Comparative Linguistics. Current Trends of Linguistics'', Den Haag (1972)</ref> There are several theories as to how Indo-European expanded, the first originating in the 19th century and its most recent form being the "Kurgan" theory. Competing scenarios for the early history of Indo-European are largely compatible for times after 2500 BC, even if they are incommensurable for the 4th millennium BC and earlier.


===Location hypotheses=== ====Timeline ====
{{main|Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses}} ] in the ] framework]]
The following timeline inserts the scenario suggested by the mainstream<ref name=Kurgan1>{{Harvcoltxt|Mallory|1989|p=185}}. "The Kurgan solution is attractive and has been accepted by many archaeologists and linguists, in part or total. It is the solution one encounters in the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' and the ''Grand Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Larousse''."</ref><ref name=Kurgan2>{{Harvcoltxt|Strazny|2000|p=163}}. "The single most popular proposal is the Pontic steppes (see the Kurgan hypothesis)..."</ref> ] for the mid 5th to mid 3rd millennia (see below for competing hypotheses).


* ]–4000: '''Early PIE'''. ], ] and ] cultures, ]. (The early presence of the horse at Sredny Stog has been discredited as decisive&mdash;genetic evidence does not supply a single origin for the domesticated horse.)
Scholars have dubbed the common ancestral (reconstructed) language ] (PIE). They disagree as to the original ] location (the so-called "]" or "original homeland") from where it originated.
* ]–3500: The ] (prototypical ]-building) emerges in the steppe, and the ] in the northern ]. ] models postulate the separation of ] before this time.
The ] locates PIE in the ] in the ] (ca. 4000 BC). The ] advanced by ], dating PIE to several millennia earlier, associating the spread of Indo-European languages with the ] spread of farming (see ]). The ] proposes a vast linguistic continuum during the Mesolithic, or Paleolithic.
* ]–3000: '''Middle PIE'''. The Yamna culture reaches its peak: it represents the classical reconstructed ], with ], early two-wheeled proto-chariots, predominantly practising ], but also with permanent settlements and ]s, subsisting on agriculture and fishing, along rivers. Contact of the Yamna culture with late ] cultures results in the "kurganized" ] and ] cultures. The ] shows the earliest evidence of the early ], and bronze weapons and artifacts enter Yamna territory. Probable early ].


] distribution]]
⚫ Mainstream opinion<ref name=Kurgan1>{{Harvcoltxt|Mallory|1989|p=185}}. "The Kurgan solution is attractive and has been accepted by many archaeologists and linguists, in part or total. It is the solution one encounters in the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' and the ''Grand Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Larousse''."</ref><ref name=Kurgan2> "The single most popular proposal is the Pontic steppes (see the Kurgan hypothesis)..." Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics - {{Harvcoltxt|Philip Strazny|2000|p=163}}, Publisher Routledge, ISBN-10: 1579582184</ref> locates the PIE homeland in the ] ], more specifically to the area encompassed by the ] culture (ca. 4500 BC). The ] seeks to describe the Indo-European language expansion by a succession of migrations that allegedly originated from this area. Opposition to this solution does not lie with those who would argue that the Proto-Indo-European homeland must have been larger,<ref>Mallory 1989, p.185</ref> since the ] does not contradict the Pontic-Caspian region being part of PIE territory. As such, the main competitor of the Kurgan solution is the ] advanced by ], dating PIE to several millennia earlier, associating the spread of Indo-European languages with the ] spread of farming (see ]). Other proposals are e.g. the ] and the ].

* ]–2500: '''Late PIE'''. The Yamna culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe. The ] extends from the ] to the ], corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, but still in loose contact and thus enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups (except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, already isolated from these processes). The Centum-Satem division has probably run its course, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
* ]–2000: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects has done its work. Speakers of ] live in the ], speakers of ] north of the Caspian in the ] culture. The Bronze Age reaches ] with the ], whose people probably use various Centum dialects. ] speakers (or alternatively, ] and ] communities in close contact) emerge in north-eastern Europe. The ] possibly correspond to proto-].
] distribution]]
]]]
] and ] distribution]]
* ]–1500: Invention of the ], which leads to the split and rapid spread of ] and ] from the ] and the ] over much of ], Northern ], ] and Eastern ]. Proto-Anatolian splits into ] and ]. The pre-Proto-Celtic ] has an active metal industry (]).
* ]–1000: The ] develops (pre-)], and the (pre-)] ] and ] cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the ]. ] migration into the ]. Redaction of the '']'' and rise of the ] in the ]. Flourishing and decline of the ]. The ] gives way to the ].
* ]–]: The ] spread over Central and Western Europe. Northern Europe enters the ], the formative phase of ]. ] initiates Greek literature and early ]. The Vedic civilization gives way to the ]. ] composes the ]s; rise of the ], replacing the ] and ]. The ] supplant the ] (]) in the Pontic steppe. Separation of Proto-Italic into ] and ], and foundation of ]. Genesis of the ] and ] alphabets. A variety of ] have speakers in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages suffer ].
⚫ ===Proto-Indo-European===
⚫ {{main|Proto-Indo-European language}}

⚫ The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the ]. The classical phase of Indo-European ] leads from ]'s ''Comparative Grammar'' (1833) to ]'s ] ''Compendium'' and up to ]'s '']'' published from the ]. Brugmann's '']'' re-evaluation of the field and ]'s development of the ] 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 ], ] and ]) developed a better understanding of morphology and, in the wake of ]'s ] ''Apophonie'', understanding of the ]. From the 1960s, knowledge of Anatolian became certain enough to establish its relationship to PIE. Using the method of ] an earlier stage, called ], has been proposed.

⚫ PIE was an ], in which the grammatical relationships between words were signaled through inflectional morphemes (usually endings). The ] of PIE are basic ]s carrying a ] meaning. By addition of ]es, they form ], and by addition of ]s (usually endings), these form grammatically inflected words (]s or ]s).
⚫ The ] system is complex and, as the noun, exhibits a system of ].

====Location hypotheses====
{{main|Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses}}
⚫ Mainstream opinion<ref name=Kurgan1>{{Harvcoltxt|Mallory|1989|p=185}}. "The Kurgan solution is attractive and has been accepted by many archaeologists and linguists, in part or total. It is the solution one encounters in the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' and the ''Grand Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Larousse''."</ref><ref name=Kurgan2> "The single most popular proposal is the Pontic steppes (see the Kurgan hypothesis)..." Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics - {{Harvcoltxt|Philip Strazny|2000|p=163}}, Publisher Routledge, ISBN-10: 1579582184</ref> locates the PIE homeland in the ] ], more specifically to the area encompassed by the ] culture (ca. 4500 BC). The ] seeks to describe the Indo-European language expansion by a succession of migrations that allegedly originated from this area.
Opposition to this solution does not lie with those who would argue that the Proto-Indo-European homeland must have been larger,<ref>Mallory 1989, p.185</ref> since the ] does not contradict the Pontic-Caspian region being part of PIE territory. As such, the main competitor of the Kurgan solution is the ] advanced by ], dating PIE to several millennia earlier, associating the spread of Indo-European languages with the ] spread of farming (see ]). Other competing scenarios are e.g. the ] (proposed by Soviet scholars in the 1980s) or the "]" proposed by Italian "]" in the 1990s.


== References == == References ==

Revision as of 09:03, 18 December 2007

For other uses, see Indo-European.
Indo-European
Geographic
distribution		Before the fifteenth century, Europe, and South, Central and Southwest Asia; today worldwide.
Linguistic classificationOne of the world's major language families; although some have proposed links with other families, none of these has received mainstream acceptance.
Subdivisions
Language codes
ISO 639-2 / 5ine

The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most of the major languages of Europe, the northern Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and much of Central Asia. Indo-European (Indo refers to the Indian subcontinent) 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.

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. 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.

Classification

Indo-European language family.
Part of a series on
Indo-European topics
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Extant
Extinct
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Origins
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Chalcolithic (Copper Age)

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Caucasus

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Europe

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Steppe

Europe

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Peoples and societies
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Indo-Aryan

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phylogenetic clades
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The various subgroups of the Indo-European language family include (in historical order of their first attestation):

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

Grouping

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It has been suggested that this section be split out into another article titled Language family. (Discuss)

Membership of languages in the same language family is determined by the presence of shared retentions, i.e., features of the proto-language (or reflexes of such features) that cannot be explained better by chance or borrowing (convergence). Membership in a branch/group/subgroup within a language family is determined 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.

A problem, however, is that shared innovations can be acquired by borrowing or other means. 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 *ṛ,* ḷ, *ṃ, *ṇ, unique to these two groups among IE languages. But legitimate uncertainty about whether shared innovations are areal features, coincidence, or inheritance from a common ancestor, leads to disagreement over the proper subdivisions of any large language family.

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 an absolutely standard feature of the Indo-European landscape; nowadays it is little honored, in part because much of the striking evidence on the basis of which it was postulated has turned out to have been misinterpreted).

It has been suggested that this section be split out into another article titled Indo-Hittite. (Discuss)

Indo-Hittite refers to the theory that Indo-European (sensu stricto, i.e. the proto-language of the Indo-European languages known before the discovery of Hittite), and Proto-Anatolian, split from a common proto-language called Proto-Indo-Hittite by its first theoretician, Edgar Sturtevant. Validation of such a theory would consist of identifying formal-functional structures that can be coherently reconstructed for both branches but which can only be traced to a formal-functional structure that is either (a) different from both or else (b) shows evidence of a very early, group-wide innovation. As an example of (a), it is obvious that the Indo-European perfect subsystem in the verbs is formally superimposable on the Hittite ḫi-verb subsystem, but there is no match-up functionally, such that (as has been held) the functional source must have been unlike both Hittite and Indo-European. As an example of (b), the solidly-reconstructable Indo-European deictic pronoun paradigm whose nominatives singular are *so, *sā (*seH₂), *tod has been compared to a collection of clause-marking particles in Hittite, the argument being that the coalescence of these particles into the familiar Indo-European paradigm was an innovation of that branch of Proto-Indo-Hittite.

Satem and Centum languages

Main article: Centum-Satem isogloss
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Diachronic map showing the Centum (blue) and Satem (red) areals. The supposed area of origin of satemization is shown in darker red ( Sintashta/Abashevo/Srubna cultures).

Many scholars classify the Indo-European sub-branches into a Satem group and a Centum group. This terminology comes from the different treatment of the three original velar rows. Satem languages lost the distinction between labiovelar and pure velar sounds, and at the same time assibilated the palatal velars. The centum languages, on the other hand, lost the distinction between palatal velars and pure velars. Geographically, the "eastern" languages belong in the Satem group: Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic (but not including Tocharian and Anatolian); and the "western" languages represent the Centum group: Germanic, Italic, and Celtic. 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). Note that the grouping does not imply a claim of monophyly: we do not need to postulate the existence of a "proto-Centum" or of a "proto-Satem". 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. (Together with the recognition that the Centum Languages are no subgroup: as mentioned above, subgroups are defined by shared innovations, which the Satem languages definitely have, but the only thing that the "Centum Languages" have in common is staying put.)

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.

History of the idea of Indo-European

Main article: Indo-European studies

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.

The first account to mention Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti (born in Florence, Italy in 1540 AD), a Florentine merchant who travelled 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'). Unfortunately neither Stephens' nor Sasetti's observations led to any further scholarly inquiry.

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.

Historical evolution

Sound changes

Main article: Indo-European sound laws

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.

Indo-European expansion

The earliest attestations of Indo-European languages date to the early 2nd millennium BC. At that time, the languages were already diversified and widely distributed, so that "loss of contact" between the individual dialects is accepted to have taken place before 2500 BC. There are several theories as to how Indo-European expanded, the first originating in the 19th century and its most recent form being the "Kurgan" theory. Competing scenarios for the early history of Indo-European are largely compatible for times after 2500 BC, even if they are incommensurable for the 4th millennium BC and earlier.

Timeline

late Proto-Indo-European language in the Kurgan framework

The following timeline inserts the scenario suggested by the mainstream Kurgan hypothesis for the mid 5th to mid 3rd millennia (see below for competing hypotheses).

mid-3rd millennium BC distribution
  • 3000–2500: Late PIE. The Yamna culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe. The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, but still in loose contact and thus enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups (except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, already isolated from these processes). The Centum-Satem division has probably run its course, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
  • 2500–2000: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects has done its work. Speakers of Proto-Greek live in the Balkans, speakers of Proto-Indo-Iranian north of the Caspian in the Sintashta-Petrovka culture. The Bronze Age reaches Central Europe with the Beaker culture, whose people probably use various Centum dialects. Proto-Balto-Slavic speakers (or alternatively, Proto-Slavic and Proto-Baltic communities in close contact) emerge in north-eastern Europe. The Tarim mummies possibly correspond to proto-Tocharians.
mid 2nd millennium BC distribution
distribution around 250 BC
post- Roman Empire and Migrations period distribution

Proto-Indo-European

Main article: Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical 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 Kuryłowicz'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 Indo-European verb system is complex and, as the noun, exhibits a system of ablaut.

Location hypotheses

Main article: Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses

Mainstream opinion locates the PIE homeland in the Chalcolithic Pontic-Caspian steppe, more specifically to the area encompassed by the Sredny Stog culture (ca. 4500 BC). The Kurgan hypothesis seeks to describe the Indo-European language expansion by a succession of migrations that allegedly originated from this area. Opposition to this solution does not lie with those who would argue that the Proto-Indo-European homeland must have been larger, since the broader homeland model does not contradict the Pontic-Caspian region being part of PIE territory. As such, the main competitor of the Kurgan solution is the Anatolian hypothesis advanced by Colin Renfrew, dating PIE to several millennia earlier, associating the spread of Indo-European languages with the Neolithic spread of farming (see Indo-Hittite). Other competing scenarios are e.g. the Armenian hypothesis (proposed by Soviet scholars in the 1980s) or the "Paleolithic Continuity Theory" proposed by Italian "paleolinguists" in the 1990s.

References

Bibliography

  • Mallory, J. P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27616-1.
  • August Schleicher, A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages (1861/62).
  • Strazny, Philip (Ed). (2000). Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics (1 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1579582180.
  • Watkins, Calvert (2000). The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-08250-6.
  • Chakrabarti,Byomkes (1994). A comparative study of Santali and Bengali. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co. ISBN 8170741289

Notes

  1. 449 according to the 2005 SIL estimate, about half (219) belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch.
  2. the Sino-Tibetan family of tongues has the second-largest number of speakers.
  3. 308 languages according to SIL; more than one billion speakers (see List of languages by number of native speakers). Historically, also in terms of geographical spread (stretching from the Caucasus to South Asia; c.f. Scythia)
  4. ^ Auroux, Sylvain (2000). History of the Language Sciences. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. p. 1156. ISBN 3110167352.
  5. Oswald Szemerényi, Comparative Linguistics. Current Trends of Linguistics, Den Haag (1972)
  6. ^ Mallory (1989:185). "The Kurgan solution is attractive and has been accepted by many archaeologists and linguists, in part or total. It is the solution one encounters in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Grand Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Larousse."
  7. ^ Strazny (2000:163). "The single most popular proposal is the Pontic steppes (see the Kurgan hypothesis)..." Cite error: The named reference "Kurgan2" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  8. Mallory 1989, p.185

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