Indo-European Language Family Comparative Linguistics

Indo-European is originally a linguistic term, referring to the Indo-European language family. By extension, it became a collective name for cultures and religions associated with these languages. Hypothetically, these cultures arose from the expansion of an ancient people, the Proto-Indo-Europeans, possibly originating from somewhere around the Black Sea region from the 5th millennium BC onward.

1 Language Family

The Indo-European language family is attested in twelve branches, some of them extinct, with a historical distribution over most of Europe, Anatolia, Iran, Punjab and parts of Central Asia ( East Turkistan). During the age of colonialism, Indo-European languages spread from Europe to all continents, and today there are over three billion speakers of Indo-European languages, distributed over all the world.

The languages are traditionally separated into a Satem group in the east ( Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Armenian) and a CentumLinguistic typology Centum is the collective name for the branches of Indo-European in which the so-called Satem shift, the change of palato- velar k^, g^, g^h into fricatives or affricates, did not take place, and the palato-velar consonants merged with group in the west ( GreekThe Greek language ( /Elini'k{/) is an Indo-European language which has existed from around the 14th century BC in the Cretan inscriptions called Linear B. Mycenaean Greek of this period is distinguished from later Classical or Ancient Greek of the 8th ce, ItalicThe Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language group. Italic has two branches: Sabellic including: Oscan, spoken in the south-central region of the Italian peninsula Umbrian (not to be confused with the modern Umbrian, CelticCeltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages. They were spoken across western Europe in ancient times, but are now limited to a few enclaves in the British Isles and on the peninsula of Brittany in France. There are four main groups of Cel, GermanicThe Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. They are characterised by a number of unique linguistic feature), according to their different treatment of PIE velar soundsVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum . The velar consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: Notes: #. The two groups are considered paraphyleticIn phylogenetics, a grouping of organisms is said to be paraphyletic if all the members of the group have a common ancestor but the group does not include all the descendants of the common ancestor. Groups which include all the descendants of a common anc, i.e. there are no separate proto-languageProto-language may either refer to a language that preceded a certain set of given languages, or to system of communication during a stage in glottogony that may not yet be properly called a language. Proto-language (relative): A language that reflects ans for each group and their common characteristics are likely due to prolongued contact because of their geographical proximity. Also, there is evidence that the Anatolian, Tocharian and Albanian branches belong to neither of the two groups.

2 Comparative Linguistics

See main article Indo-European studies.

The existence of the Proto-Indo-Europeans has been inferred by

comparative linguistics. The discovery of the genetic relationship of the various Indo-European languages goes back to William Jones, a British judge in India, who in 1782 observed the strong affinity of Sanskrit, Greek and Latin.

"Indo-European", the term now current in English, was coined in 1813 by the British scholar Sir Thomas Young.

At first, the related languages were simply compared, with no attempt at reconstruction. August Schleicher was the first scholar to compose a tentative text in the extinct "common source" Jones had predicted. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) represents, by definition, the common language of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

In the 20th century, great progress was made due to the discovery of more language material belonging to the Indo-European family, and by advances in comparative linguistics, by scholars such as Ferdinand de Saussure.

3 Proto-Indo-Europeans

See main article Proto-Indo-European.

3.1 Origins

The scholars of the 19th century that originally tackled the question of the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans (also called Urheimat after the German term), were essentially confined to linguistic evidence. A rough localization was attempted by reconstructing the names of plants and animals as well as the culture and technology. The scholarly opinions became basically divided between a European hypothesis, positing migration from Europe to Asia, and an Asian hypothesis, holding that the migration took place in the opposite direction.

However, from its early days, the controversy was tainted by romantic, nationalistic notions of heroic invaders at best and by imperialist and racist agendas at worst. The question is still the source of much contention.

In the twentieth century, Marija Gimbutas ( 1956) created a modern variation on the traditional invasion theory (the Kurgan hypothesis) which regards the Indo-Europeans as a nomadic tribe in what is today the Ukraine, expanding in several waves during the 3rd millennium BC. Colin Renfrew ( 1987) is the main propagator for another theory according to which the Indo-Europeans were farmers in Asia Minor who migrated peacefully into southeast Europe from around 7000 BC.

The rise of Archaeogenetic evidence which uses genetic analysis to trace migration patterns added new elements to the puzzle. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza recently used genetic evidence to in some ways combine Gimbutas' and Renfrew's theory.

3.2 Society

PIE religion was centered on sacrificial rituals where animals were slaughtered to establish good relations with the gods. The chief god of the Indo-European pantheon, probably mirroring the position of the king in human society, was the sky-god * Dyeus.

Indo-European

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