Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rokus01 (talk | contribs) at 20:07, 11 November 2007 (→Paleolithic Continuity Theory). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Indo-European
Geographic distribution	Before the fifteenth century, Europe, and South, Central and Southwest Asia; today worldwide.
Linguistic classification	One of the world's major language families; although some have proposed links with other families, none of these has received mainstream acceptance.
Subdivisions	Albanian Anatolian Armenian Baltic Celtic Germanic Greek Indo-Iranian Italic (including Romance) Slavic Tocharian
Language codes
ISO 639-2 / 5	ine

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

Part of a series on
Indo-European topics
Languages List of Indo-European languages Extant Albanoid Albanian Armenian Balto-Slavic Baltic Slavic Celtic Germanic Hellenic Greek Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Nuristani Italic Romance Extinct Anatolian Tocharian Paleo-Balkan Dacian Illyrian Liburnian Messapic Mysian Paeonian Phrygian Thracian Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language Phonology: Sound laws, Accent, Ablaut Hypothetical Balkanic Daco-Thracian Graeco-Albanian Graeco-Armenian Graeco-Aryan Graeco-Phrygian Indo-Hittite Italo-Celtic Thraco-Illyrian Grammar Vocabulary Root Verbs Nouns Pronouns Numerals Particles Other Proto-Albanian Proto-Anatolian Proto-Armenian Proto-Germanic (Proto-Norse) Proto-Italo-Celtic (Proto-Celtic · Proto-Italic) Proto-Greek Proto-Balto-Slavic (Proto-Slavic · Proto-Baltic) Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Iranian)
Philology Hittite inscriptions Hieroglyphic Luwian Linear B Rigveda Avesta Homer Behistun Greek epigraphy Phrygian epigraphy Messapic epigraphy Latin epigraphy Gaulish epigraphy Runic epigraphy Ogham Gothic Bible Bible translations into Armenian Tocharian script Old Irish glosses Albanian Kanun
Origins Homeland Proto-Indo-Europeans Society Religion Mainstream Kurgan hypothesis Indo-European migrations Eurasian nomads Alternative and fringe Anatolian hypothesis Armenian hypothesis Beech argument Indigenous Aryanism Baltic homeland Paleolithic continuity theory
Archaeology Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Pontic Steppe Domestication of the horse Kurgan Kurgan stelae Kurgan culture Steppe cultures Bug–Dniester Sredny Stog Dnieper–Donets Samara Khvalynsk Yamnaya Mikhaylovka culture Novotitarovskaya culture Caucasus Maykop East Asia Afanasievo Eastern Europe Usatovo Cernavodă Cucuteni Northern Europe Corded ware Baden Middle Dnieper Bronze Age Pontic Steppe Chariot Yamnaya Catacomb Multi-cordoned ware Poltavka Srubnaya Northern/Eastern Steppe Abashevo culture Andronovo Sintashta Europe Globular Amphora Corded ware Bell Beaker Únětice Trzciniec Nordic Bronze Age Terramare Tumulus Urnfield Lusatian South Asia BMAC Yaz Gandhara grave Iron Age Steppe Chernoles Europe Thraco-Cimmerian Hallstatt Jastorf Caucasus Colchian India Painted Grey Ware Northern Black Polished Ware
Peoples and societies Bronze Age Anatolian peoples (Hittites) Armenians Mycenaean Greeks Indo-Iranians Iron Age Indo-Aryans Indo-Aryans Iranians Iranians East Asia Wusun Yuezhi Europe Celts Gauls Celtiberians Insular Celts Cimmerians Hellenic peoples Italic peoples Germanic peoples Paleo-Balkan/Anatolia Thracians Dacians Illyrians Paeonians Phrygians Scythians Middle Ages East Asia Tocharians Europe Albanians Balts Slavs Norsemen/Medieval Scandinavians Middle Ages Indo-Aryan Medieval India Iranian Greater Iran
Religion and mythology Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology Proto-Indo-Iranian paganism Historical Vedic religion Ancient Iranian religion Historical Hittite Indo-Aryan Vedic Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism Iranian Persian Zoroastrianism Kurdish Yazidism Yarsanism Scythian Ossetian Others Armenian European Paleo-Balkan (Albanian · Illyrian · Thracian · Dacian) Greek Roman Celtic Irish Scottish Breton Welsh Cornish Germanic Anglo-Saxon Continental Norse Baltic Latvian Lithuanian Slavic Practices Fire rituals Horse sacrifice Sati Winter solstice/Yule
Indo-European studies Scholars Marija Gimbutas J. P. Mallory Institutes Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European Publications Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture The Horse, the Wheel, and Language Journal of Indo-European Studies Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch Indo-European Etymological Dictionary
v t e

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

• Anatolian languages, earliest attested branch, from the 18th century BC; extinct, most notably including the language of the Hittites.
• Indo-Iranian languages, descending from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian
  • Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, attested from the mid 2nd millennium BC.
  • Iranian languages, attested from roughly 1000 BC in the form of Avestan, and from 520 BC in the form of Old Persian
  • Dardic languages
  • Nuristani languages
• Greek language, fragmentary records in Mycenaean from the 14th century BC; Homeric traditions date to the 8th century BC. (See Proto-Greek language, History of the Greek language.)
• Italic languages, including Latin and its descendants (the Romance languages), attested from the 7th century BC.
• Celtic languages, Gaulish inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Old Irish texts from the 6th century AD, see Proto-Celtic language.
• Germanic languages (including Old English and English), earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century AD, see Proto-Germanic language.
• Armenian language, attested from the 5th century AD.
• Tocharian languages, extinct tongues of the Tocharians, extant in two dialects, attested from roughly the 6th century AD.
• Balto-Slavic languages, believed by many Indo-Europeanists to derive from a common proto-language later than Proto-Indo-European, while skeptical Indo-Europeanists regard Baltic and Slavic as no more closely related than any other two branches of Indo-European.
  • Slavic languages, 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.
• Albanian language, attested from the 15th century; relations with Illyrian, Dacian, or Thracian proposed.

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.

No doubt other Indo-European languages once existed which have now vanished without leaving a trace.

A large majority of auxiliary languages can be considered Indo-European, at least in content. Examples include

• Interlingua
• Occidental
• Latino sine Flexione

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 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, 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).

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

This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details. (October 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

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 worsens 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

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

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. Newer theories oppose this timeframe. Competing scenarios for the early history of Indo-European are thus largely compatible for times after 2500 BC, even if they are incommensurable for the 4th millennium BC and earlier. 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).

Timeline constructed on 'Kurgan Hypothesis'

• 4500–4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper-Donets and Samara cultures, domestication of the horse. (The early presence of the horse at Sredny Stog has been discredited as decisive—genetic evidence does not supply a single origin for the domesticated horse.)
• 4000–3500: The Yamna culture (prototypical kurgan-building) emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
• 3500–3000: Middle PIE. The Yamna culture reaches its peak: it represents the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society, with stone idols, early two-wheeled proto-chariots, predominantly practising animal husbandry, but also with permanent settlements and hillforts, subsisting on agriculture and fishing, along rivers. Contact of the Yamna culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora and Baden cultures. The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the early Bronze Age, and bronze weapons and artifacts enter Yamna territory. Probable early Satemization.

• 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.

• 2000–1500: Invention of the chariot, which leads to the split and rapid spread of Iranian and Indo-Aryan from the Andronovo culture and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex over much of Central Asia, Northern India, Iran and Eastern Anatolia. Proto-Anatolian splits 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. Proto-Italic migration into the Italian peninsula. Redaction of the Rigveda and rise of the Vedic civilization in the Punjab. Flourishing and decline of the Hittite Empire. The Mycenaean civilization gives way to the Greek Dark Ages.
• 1000 BC–500 BC: The Celtic languages spread over Central and Western Europe. Northern Europe enters the Pre-Roman Iron Age, the formative phase of Proto-Germanic. Homer initiates Greek literature and early Classical Antiquity. The Vedic civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Zoroaster composes the Gathas; rise of the Achaemenid Empire, replacing the Elamites and Babylonia. The Scythians supplant the Cimmerians (Srubna culture) in the Pontic steppe. Separation of Proto-Italic into Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Faliscan, and foundation of Rome. Genesis of the Greek and Old Italic alphabets. A variety of Paleo-Balkan languages have speakers in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages suffer extinction.

Proto-Indo-European

Location hypotheses

Scholars have dubbed the common ancestral (reconstructed) language Proto-Indo-European (PIE). They disagree as to the original geographic location (the so-called "Urheimat" or "original homeland") from where it originated.

The Corded Ware culture has always occupied a prominent place in locating the Indo-European origins. Preponderance of what generally are considered Indo-European traits have lead many to assume this culture in Northern Europe to provide the homeland culture of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, especially among German archeologists of the early twentieth century. However, despite strenuous attempts this culture could not be linked to the Indo-Europeans of the Balkans, Greece or Anatolia, and neither to the Indo-Europeans in Asia. Ever since, establishing the correct relationship between the Corded Ware and Pontic-Caspian regions is essential to solving the entire homeland problem. The discovery since the 70s of Bell Beaker culture being genetically a Late Neolithic extension to Corded Ware, and recent Bell Beaker related discoveries as far as Romania and Early Helladic Greece, did not change the doubt since the rapid expanse of the Bell Beakers has traditionally been viewed upon as a rather cultural phenomenon.

Mainstream opinion locates PIE in the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the Chalcolithic (from ca. 4000 BC; see Kurgan hypothesis). The main competitor of this 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). Neither of both hypotheses survived the initial proposals as archeological and linguistic evicence forced their revision on some fundamental details, varying from serious general criticism on the kurganization of Anatolia through the Caucasian route (Mallory 1989, p233) forwarded in the original Kurgan hypothesis, to linguistic criticism on the unrealistic timedepth implied by the Anatolian hypothesis. Efforts to make the two hypotheses compatible include the rapid divergence of the Romance, Celtic and Balto-Slavic languages around 6,500 years ago makes the two hypotheses compatible.

It should be noted that theories of the origin of Indo-European languages are not based on purely linguistic concepts. These theories are highly dependent on extra-linguistic factors, particularly interpretations of archaeological findings and the unattested meaning of words dating back as much as 3500 years or more before writing. The reference above to "mainstream" opinion concerning origins in the Pontic-Caspian steppes relies on some of such extra-linguistic conclusions, leaving some other key issues concerning timedepth explicitly unresolved (Mallory 1989, p137). Since there is no direct way of knowing what language was spoken by a particular archaeological culture or how the meaning of words changed over thousands of years, theories about the location of the origin of Indo-European languages remain largely conjectural.

Early studies of Indo-European languages focused on those most familiar to the original European researchers: the Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic families. Affinities between these and the "Aryan" languages spoken in faraway India were noticed by European travelers as early as the 16th century. That they might all share a common ancestor was first proposed in 1786 by Sir William Jones, an English jurist and student of Eastern cultures. He thus launched what came to be known as the Indo-European hypothesis, which served as the principal stimulus to the founders of historical linguistics in the 19th century.

Paleolithic Continuity Theory

A recent version of the hypothesis of European origin of PIE is the "Paleolithic Continuity Theory" proposed by Western European theorists. This hypothesis draws on general linguistic theory and previously unavailable information from genetics, paleao-anthropology and archeology, and argues for an uninterrupted continuity of Indo-European languages from Paleolithic cultures.

According to Mallory, the consequence of rejecting a Pontic presence in Central and Northern Europe during the Eneolithic, and proving local continuity of Corded Ware culture back to Funnelbeaker and Ertebølle cultures, would be a vast linguistic continuum during the Mesolithic or Paleolithic that connected the North Sea with the Volga-Ural. Shared development and unbroken contact up to the historic distribution of Indo European languages would include Mesolithic contacts, the course of Neolitization, and the subsequent Second Products Revolution important to the Proto Indo Europeans (Mallory, p218). The latter started in Late Neolithic and reached its height in the Bronze Age and was typified by the use of the plough, dairy products, wool, and wheeled vehicles, only to be closed off about 2500 BC at the very least by the appearance of the chariot and its adoption in a shared Indo European mythology and vocabularity. According to this view, some complex process of assimilation and convergence would acount to the development of shared features.

All Neolithic cultures of Europe either are a direct continuation of Mesolithic ones, or have been created by Mesolithic groups after their Neolithization by intrusive farmers from the Middle East. The Neolithic advance of Balkan farmers towards the north and west, followed and was ultimately confined by the fertile soils that could be cultivated without the plough - that was not invented yet. This advance of agriculture was deterred by a thousand years, due to less fertile soils or, to the contrary, overtly fertile heavy river sediments that offered less favorable conditions to traditional neolithic clearing technics. This became the scene of a "tertiary" zone of neolithization by the originally mesolithic autochthons that occupied the wetlands in what has been described as a deliberate choice, triggered by an abundant variety of habitats favourable to fishing, hunting and gathering.

This Neolithic advance has commonly been pictured as a colonization process by Balkan farmers and was for instance featured by Linear Pottery (with Rössen culture and Lengyel culture being the most important derivate cultures) and Cardium Pottery. These cultures had already passed their "aceramic Neolithic stage" when they became neighbours to the presumably autochthon and semi-sedentary fishing cultures, whose cultural level has been described as "ceramic Mesolithic". By then most Mesolithic people employed a distinct type of pottery manufactured by methods not known to the Neolithic farmers. Though each area developed an individual style, yet some common features such as the point or knob base and the superimposed circular rolls of clay, suggests enduring contact and even "ethnic" relationships between the groups. The special shape of this pottery has been related to transport by logboat in wetland areas (De Roever 2004,p.163). Jeunesse et al (1991, fig.22) related similar point base pottery from Spain, southern Scandinavia and the Dnieper-Donets region in the Ukraine. Another area featuring neolithic point base pottery is Northern Africa.

Especially interrelated are Swifterbant in the Netherlands, Ellerbek and Ertebølle in Northern Germany and Scandinavia, "Ceramic Mesolithic" pottery of Belgium and Northern France (including non-Linear pottery such as La Hoguette, Bliquy, Villeneuve-Saint-Germain), the Roucedour culture in Southwest France and the river and lake areas of Northern Poland and Russia. Dmitry Telegin assign the early fifth millennium Dnieper-Donets culture of hunters and fishers to a broad cultural region that spanned the Vistula in Poland southeast to the Dnieper. The dispersion of La Hoguette also intrudes typical Linear Pottery regions. Both La Hoguette and Roucadourien have been proposed to be older than Linear Pottery. The Mesolithic peoples in the hunter-gatherer phase already produced their own pottery when the first neolithic farmers arrived at the Rhine. It is generally accepted that nomadic mesolithic hunters and gatherers connected the neolithic farmers of the Cardium culture at the Franch-Spanish Mediterranean coast to La Hoguette and Roucadourien through the Rhone-Saône route. To the east, this same genetically related pottery found its way to the steppes and forests of Russia, where from the 4th millennium BC on peoples from the Pontic-Caspian brought point base pottery from their original riverside habitats even into the steppe and foreststeppe east of the Urals.

Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures dated according to the attested pottery:

Culture	First attested pottery	Source
Linear Pottery culture	5450-5000 BC	De Roever, 2004
Rössen culture	4900-4500 BC	De Roever, 2004
Bischheim culture	4500-4375 BC	De Roever, 2004
Michelsberg I-IV	4350-3400 BC	De Roever, 2004
-	-	-
Swifterbant, Polderweg 2nd phase	5200-4950 BC	De Roever, 2004
Hazendonk 1,2,3	4250-3300 BC	De Roever, 2004
Vlaardingen (Late Mesolithic)	3550-2500 BC	De Roever, 2004
-	-	-
Ertebolle/Ellerbek (Northern Germany)	5100-3850 BC	De Roever, 2004
Ertebølle (Salpetermosen)	4950-4800 BC	De Roever, 2004
Ertebølle (Scandinavia)	4650-3850 BC	De Roever, 2004
TRB, Hüde-Dümmer	4300-3400 BC	De Roever, 2004
TRB, early, Germany & Scandinavia	4100-3300 BC	De Roever, 2004
TRB, Drenthe, Westgroup	3300-2700 BC	De Roever, 2004
-	-	-
Ceramic Mesolithic Belgium	4500 BC	De Roever, 2004
Ceramic Mesolitic France, Roucadourien	4850-4450 BC	De Roever, 2004
-	-	-
Early Dnieper-Donets region	Early fifth millennium	Mallory, 1989
Sredny Stog culture	4500-3500 BC	Mallory, 1989

Most archeologist accept the hypothesis that the Dnieper-Donets culture was swallowed up by other populations from the steppe (Mallory p.256). Telegin indicates it was assimilated by the Sredny Stog and Yamnaya cultures, while Gimbutas dismiss this culture as a local substrate assimilated by invaders from the Volga-Ural region.

The Paleolithic Continuity hypothesis proposes a reversal of the Kurgan hypothesis and largely identifies the Indo-Europeans with Gimbutas "Old Europe", while it reassigning the Kurgan culture - traditionally considered early Indo-European - to a people of predominantly mixed Uralic and Turkic stock. The proof of this is sought in the tentative linguistic identification of Etruscans as a Uralic, proto-Hungarian people that already underwent strong proto-Turkish influence in the third millennium BC when Pontic invasions would have brought this people to the Carpatian basin. A subsequent migration of Urnfield culture signature around 1250 BC triggered this ethnic group to expand south in a general movement of people, attested by the upheaval of the Sea Peoples and the overthrow of an earlier Italic substrate at the onset of the "Etruscan" Villanovan culture.

It should be noted that the Continuity Theory does not supply migration models to tie this related prehistoric cultures together, and assume local continuity to each until an alternative theory provides irrefutable counter-evidence. The initial prehistoric dispersal pattern of the Indo-European languages is tied instead to a process of regional depopulation followed by repopulation in a "sparse wave" scenario of hunter-gatherers, migrating rapidly out of a refugial area to account for a disproportionate contribution to the genetic and linguistic legacy of the region. This is proposed to have happened at the end of the coldest part of the Younger Dryas (around 10,800-9,400 cal. BC) or later, following the cold event at 6.200 cal BC.

Concerning paleoanthropology, the physical type of the Dnieper-Donets population has been predominantly characterized as late Cro-Magnons with more massive and robust features than the gracile Mediterranean peoples of the Balkan Neolithic. This corresponds to the robust physical type of other Mesolithic wetland and fishing cultures, like Ertebølle and Swifterbant.

Anatolian hypothesis

Colin Renfrew in 1987 suggested an association between the spread of Indo-European and the Neolithic revolution, spreading peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor (Anatolia) from around 7000 BC with the advance of farming (wave of advance). Accordingly, all the inhabitants of Neolithic Europe would have spoken Indo-European tongues, and the Kurgan migrations would at best have replaced Indo-European dialects with other Indo-European dialects.

According to Renfrew , the spread of Indo-European proceeded from "Pre-Proto-Indo-European" in 6500 to Archaic PIE in 5000 BC, with the historical Indo-European families developing from 3000 BC from "Balkan PIE".

The main strength of the farming hypothesis lies in its linking of the spread of Indo-European languages with an archeologically known event that likely involved major population shifts: the spread of farming (though the validity of basing a linguistics theory on archeological evidence remains disputed).

While the Anatolian theory enjoyed brief support when first proposed, the linguistic community in general now rejects it. While the spread of farming undisputedly constituted an important event, most see no case to connect it with Indo-Europeans in particular, since terms for animal husbandry tend to have much better reconstructions than terms related to agriculture.

The time frame of the Anatolian hypothesis moved 2000 years closer to postulated by PCT time frame, by a 2003 computer analysis in glottochronology The rate of change calculated is 9,800-8,000 years BP, for Indo-Hittite division at 6700 BCE, and a Graeco-Aryan division at 5300 BCE, about few millennia earlier for a Kurgan time frame and one or two earlier than suggested originally by Colin Renfrew as 7000 BC.

Kurgan hypothesis

The Kurgan hypothesis was introduced by Marija Gimbutas in 1956 in order to combine archaeology with linguistics in locating the origins of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) speaking peoples. She tentatively named the set of cultures in question "Kurgan" after the Russian term for their distinctive burial mounds and traced their diffusion into Europe.

This hypothesis has had a significant impact on Indo-European research. Those scholars who follow Gimbutas identify a Kurgan or Pit Grave culture as reflecting an early Proto-Indo-European ethnicity which existed in the Pontic steppe and southeastern Europe from the fifth to third millennia BC.

While Gimbutas pointed primarily at the kurgan-ridden Pit Grave- or Yamna culture to be at the origin of all Indo-European migrations and Indo-Europeanization, recently there exists a tendency to push the date of origin further back in time. In a revised Kurgan hypothesis rather the kurgan-less Sredny Stog culture has been proposed to be ancestral to all Indo-European languages instead, and the subsequently evolving Yamna culture to be related to the later satemization process.

Armenian hypotheses

The Armenian hypothesis of Tamaz Gamq'relidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov in 1984 placed the Indo-European homeland on Lake Urmia , suggesting that Armenian stayed in the Indo-European cradle while other Indo-European languages left the homeland and migrated on a route that led them along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the steppe north of the Black Sea. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov also originated the Glottalic theory.

A recent study (Gray & Atkinson) that applied the statistical tools used in timing genetic evolution to the lexical evolution of Indo-European languages strongly implied that the Indo-European homeland indeed appears to be in Asia Minor, and Armenian language (hence a well-defined group speaking it) split from it (along with Greek) at around 5300 BC, and split from Greek shortly thereafter (but the "split" from Greek was statistically less obvious).

Other hypotheses

An Out of India theory is sometimes advanced, mostly by Indian authors, who see the Indus Valley Civilization as the location of either Proto-Indo-European or of Proto-Indo-Iranian.

Various nationalistic European groups in the 19th and early 20th centuries espoused other theories, typically locating Proto-Indo-European in the respective authors' own countries. For example, a suggested location of the proto-language in Northern Europe became involved in justifying the view of the German people as "Aryan".

Some people have pointed to the Black Sea deluge theory, dating the genesis of the Sea of Azov to ca. 5600 BC, as a direct cause of Indo-European expansion. This event occurred in still clearly Neolithic times and happened rather too early to fit with Kurgan archaeology. One can still imagine it as an event in the remote past of the Sredny Stog culture, with the people living on the land now beneath the Sea of Azov as possible pre-Proto-Indo-Europeans.

A recent version of the hypothesis of European origin of PIE is the "Paleolithic Continuity Theory" proposed by Italian theorists, which derives Indo-European languages from the Proto-Indo-European Paleolithic cultures, arguing for linguistic continuity from genetic continuity.

Recent linguistic studies present strong evidence that the Indo-European language group originates in Anatolia.

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).
• 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. Chapter 11 (L’influenza del ‘catastrofismo’ sulla linguistica storica) of Le origini delle lingue d’Europa. Vol. I. La teoria della continuità. Mario Alinei , En translation URL
7. ^ In Search of the Indo-Europeans - J.P.Mallory, Thames and Hudson 1989, p245,ISBN 0-500-27616-1
8. When the West meets the East: The Eastern Periphery of the Bell Beaker Phenomenon and its Relation with the Aegean Early Bronze Age. In: I. Galanaki, I. Galanakis, H. Tomas & R. Laffineur (eds.), Between the Aegean and Baltic Seas: Prehistory across Borders. Proceedings of the International Conference ‘Bronze and Early Iron Age Interconnections and Contemporary Developments between the Aegean and the Region of the Balkan Peninsula, Central and Northern Europe’. University of Zagreb, 10-14 April 2005. Aegaeum 27 (Liège: Université, 2007), pp. 91-107- Volkert Heyd, 2005
9. Gray and Atkinson (2003) Nature vol 426, pp436-438
10. Balter (2004) Science 303, pp1323-1326.
11. Scientific American, March 1990, P.110
12. Mallory 1989, p.254
13. The Paleolithic Continuity Theory on Indo-European Origins: An Introduction - Mario Alinei
14. De Roevers, p135
15. De Roevers, p.162
16. ^ Jutta Paulina de Roever - Swifterbant-aardewerk, een analyse van de neolithische nederzettingen bij swifterbnt, 5e millennium voor Christus, Barkhuis & Groningen University Libary, Groningen 2004
17. De Roevers 2004, p.162-163
18. Lüning et al 1089, Lüning 2000, De Roever 2004, p.135
19. De Roever 2004, p.137
20. Mallory 1989, p.223
21. Marija Gimbutas - Old Europe c.7000-3500 BC., the earliest European cultures before the infiltration of the Indo-European peoples, «Journal of Indo-European Studies» 1, 1973, pp.1-20
22. Mario Alinei, Etruscan: An Archaic Form of Hungarian, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2003; summary:
23. Jonathan Adams & Marcel Otte, Did Indo-European Languages spread before farming?, Current Anthropology 40, No. 1. (Feb., 1999), 73-77.
24. Mallory 1989, p.191
25. Raemaekers, D.C.M., 1999, The articulation of a 'New Neolithic'. The meaning of the Swifterbant Culture for the process of neolithisation in the western part of the North European Plain (4900-3400 BC). Archeological Series Leiden University 3. Dissertation Leiden;Verhart, L.B.M.,2000. Times fade away. The neolithization of the southern Netherlands in an anthropological and geograpical perspective. Dissertation Leiden
26. Renfrew, Colin (1987). Archeology and Language. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-521-38675-6.
27. Renfrew, Colin (2003). "Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in Proto-Indo-European". Languages in Prehistoric Europe. ISBN 3-8253-1449-9.
28. Gray, R. D. and Atkinson, Q. D. (2003) Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin. Nature, 426(6965), 435-439. Quote: Languages, like genes, provide vital clues about human history, URL:http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6965/abs/nature02029.html
29. Frederik Kortlandt-The spread of the Indo-Europeans, 2002,
30. Gamkrelidze, Tamaz V. (1995). Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans. Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-014728-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
31. "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin Russell D. Gray and Quentin D. Atkinson, Nature 426, 435-439" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-02-27.
32. Ryan and Pitman 1998:208-213
33. A History of Armenia by Vahan M. Kurkjian

See also

• 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

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.
• Indo-European Root/lemmas (by Andi Zeneli)

Images

• Indo-European family tree, showing Indo-European languages and sub branches
• Image of Indo-European migrations from the Armenian Highlands

Template:Link FA

• Misplaced Pages articles that are too technical from October 2007
• Indo-European languages