The Indo-European languages

The history of all Indo-European languages stretches back to one single prehistoric root language which was spoken during the Neolithic period. Even though researchers have no written records of this language, aspects of the religion, culture and its people offer some insight into the so-called Proto-Indo-European people. Much about their culture and inherited language can be reconstructed from the modern descendants of Indo-European language speakers who continue to reside in the area. The most commonly spoken Indo-European languages by native residents are Portuguese, Hindi, English, Persian, Punjabi, Bengali, Russian and Spanish.

The amalgamation of hundreds of ancient languages

The Indo-European languages consist of an amalgamation of several hundred related dialects and languages. Today, there are around 445 existing Indo-European languages, with around 313 of these languages belonging to today’s Indo-Iranian sub-branch of languages. It is estimated that these languages are spoken by 46% of the population making it the largest group of languages spoken today.

The Indo-European languages also include modern languages spoken in Europe today especially in the Central and Western parts of the continent. The languages were also predominant in Anatolia which is now Turkey. We can date Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek back to the Bronze Age. Its ancient roots and modern existence makes Indo-European languages a major contributor to the field of modern linguistics and historical linguistics since it possesses the second biggest pool of records right after the Afroasiatic family.

The discovery of Indo-European Languages

Indo-European languages were first discovered during the 16th century when Europeans started to visit the Indian subcontinent. One of the first things they noticed was similarities among the languages they spoke with those spoken by the locals. Thomas Stephens was a Jesuit missionary who in 1583, wrote a letter to his brother in England in which he identified similarities between Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek. A similar account was talked about by Filippo Sassetti a Florence born merchant who visited the subcontinent in 1540. He wrote about similarities between Italian (his native language) and Sanskrit. He mainly identified a few words such as ‘devah/dio’ meaning “God”, ‘Sapta / Sette’ which means “seven”, and Nove / Nava which means “nine”. Despite these observations the languages were not subjected to scholarly inquiry and so, the subject was left largely untouched until 1647.

Dutch scholar and linguist Marcus Zuerius Van Bxohorn was the first to note and publish similarities between languages spoken in Asia and that in Europe. He assumed that all these languages were derived from an ancient, common language which he termed ‘Scythian.’ Despite shedding some scholarly light on the similarities, his suggestions were not widely read and so did not instigate further inquiry by other scholars.

The ignition of modern day Indo-European language studies

The start of Indo-European language studies began in 1833 with Franz Bopp’s book Comparative Grammar. That led to the work of August Schleicher who published a Compendium in 1861 and then to Karl Brugmann’s book named Grundriss in 1880. All of these books lead to the development of the laryngeal theory, which marks the beginning of modern day Indo-European studies.