Indo-European languages

Indo-European
Geographic distribution:	Before the 16th century: Europe, West, Central, and South Asia; today: worldwide
Linguistic classification:	One of the world's primary language families
Proto-language:	Proto-Indo-European
Subdivisions:	Albanian Anatolian (extinct) Armenian Balto-Slavic (Baltic and Slavic) Celtic Germanic Hellenic Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Nuristani) Italic (including Romance) Tocharian (extinct)
ISO 639-2 / 5:	ine
Glottolog:	indo1319[1]
Present-day native distribution of Indo-European languages, within their homeland of Eurasia:   Albanian   Armenian   Balto-Slavic (Baltic)   Balto-Slavic (Slavic)   Celtic   Germanic   Hellenic (Greek)   Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Nuristani)   Italic (Romance)   Non-Indo-European languages Dotted/striped areas indicate where multilingualism is common

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Indo-European topics
Languages List of Indo-European languages Historical Albanian African Romance Armenian Balto-Slavic Baltic Slavic Celtic Insular Celtic Germanic Hellenic Greek Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Italic Romance Extinct Anatolian Tocharian Paleo-Balkan Dacian Thracian Illyrian Phrygian Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language Phonology: Sound laws, Accent, Ablaut Grammar Vocabulary Root Verbs Nouns Pronouns Numerals Particles Other Proto-Anatolian Proto-Armenian Proto-Germanic (Proto-Norse) Proto-Celtic Proto-Italic Proto-Greek Proto-Balto-Slavic (Proto-Slavic) Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Iranian)
Philology Hittite texts Hieroglyphic Luwian Linear B Rigveda Avesta Homer Behistun Gaulish epigraphy Latin epigraphy Runic epigraphy Ogam Gothic Bible Armenian Bible Slanting Brahmi Old Irish glosses
Origins Indo-European migrations Homeland Kurgan hypothesis Anatolian hypothesis Paleolithic Continuity Theory Armenian hypothesis Eurasian nomads Indo-Aryan migrations Fringe theories Indigenous Aryans Indo-Aryan migration debate
Archaeology Chalcolithic Steppe Kurgan culture Kurgan Cernavodă Yamna Kemi Oba Domestication of the horse Dnieper-Donets Samara Sredny Stog Khvalynsk Maykop Europe Corded ware Baden Middle Dnieper Cucuteni Funnelbeaker Bronze Age Steppe Chariot Abashevo culture Andronovo Afanasevo Catacomb Sintashta Srubna Europe Beaker Tumulus Unetice Urnfield Lusatian Nordic Bronze Age Terramare Trzciniec 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 Reconstructed Proto-Indo-Europeans Society Religion Historical Bronze Age Anatolians Armenians Mycenaean Greeks Indo-Iranians Iron Age Indo-Aryans Iranians Scythians Persians Medes Celts Gauls Celtiberians Insular Celts Hellenic peoples Italic peoples Germanic peoples Paleo-Balkans/Anatolia: Thracians Dacians Illyrians Phrygians Middle Ages Balts Slavs Tocharians Albanians Medieval Europe Greater Persia Medieval India
Religion and mythology Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion Proto-Indo-Iranian religion Historical Hittite Vedic Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Persian Zoroastrianism Yazdânism Ossetian Paleo-Balkans Armenian Greek Roman Celtic Gaelic Gaulish Germanic Anglo-Saxon Continental Norse Baltic Latvian Lithuanian Slavic
Academic research Indo-European studies Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European Journal of Indo-European Studies Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch Indo-European Etymological Dictionary

The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects. There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by Ethnologue, with over two-thirds (313) of them belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch.^[2] The Indo-European family includes most major current languages of Europe, and parts of Western, Central and South Asia. It was also predominant in ancient Anatolia (present-day Turkey), and the ancient Tarim Basin (present-day Northwest China) and most of Central Asia until the invasion and migrations of Turkic speakers especially during the Mongol–Turkic conquest in the 13th century. With written evidence appearing since the Bronze Age in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek, the Indo-European family is significant to the field of historical linguistics as possessing the second-longest recorded history, after the Afroasiatic family.

Several disputed proposals link Indo-European to other major language families.

History of Indo-European linguistics

In the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian subcontinent began to suggest similarities among Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and European languages. In 1583, English Jesuit missionary Thomas Stephens in Goa wrote a letter to his brother (not published until the 20th century)^[3] in which he noted similarities between Indian languages (specifically Sanskrit) and Greek and Latin.

Another account to mention the ancient language Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti, a merchant born in Florence in 1540, who travelled to the Indian subcontinent. Writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian (these included devaḥ/dio "God", sarpaḥ/serpe "serpent", sapta/sette "seven", aṣhṭa/otto "eight", and nava/nove "nine").^[3] However, neither Stephens's nor Sassetti's observations led to further scholarly inquiry.^[3]

In 1647, Dutch linguist and scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn noted the similarity among certain Asian and European languages and supposed that they were derived from a primitive common language which he called Scythian. He included in his hypothesis Dutch, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic, and Baltic languages. However, Van Boxhorn's suggestions did not become widely known and did not stimulate further research.

Ottoman Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi visited Vienna in 1665–1666 as part of a diplomatic mission and noted a few similarities between words in German and in Persian. Gaston Coeurdoux and others made observations of the same type. Coeurdoux made a thorough comparison of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek conjugations in the late 1760s to suggest a relationship among them. Meanwhile, Mikhail Lomonosov compared different language groups, including Slavic, Baltic ("Kurlandic"), Iranian ("Medic"), Finnish, Chinese, "Hottentot", and others, noting that related languages (including Latin, Greek, German and Russian) must have separated in antiquity from common ancestors.^[4]

The hypothesis reappeared in 1786 when Sir William Jones first lectured on the striking similarities among three of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, to which he tentatively added Gothic, Celtic, and Persian,^[5] though his classification contained some inaccuracies and omissions.^[6]

Thomas Young first used the term Indo-European in 1813, deriving from the geographical extremes of the language family: from Western Europe to North India.^[7][8] A synonym is Indo-Germanic (Idg. or IdG.), specifying the family's southeasternmost and northwesternmost branches. This first appeared in French (indo-germanique) in 1810 in the work of Conrad Malte-Brun; in most languages this term is now dated or less common than Indo-European, although in German indogermanisch remains the standard scientific term.^[9] A number of other synonymous terms have also been used.

Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar appeared between 1833 and 1852 and marks the beginning of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline. The classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from this work to August Schleicher's 1861 Compendium and up to Karl Brugmann's Grundriss, published in the 1880s. Brugmann's neogrammarian reevaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussure's development of the laryngeal theory may be considered the beginning of "modern" 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 of ablaut in the wake of Kuryłowicz's 1956 Apophonie.

Classification

The various subgroups of the Indo-European language family include ten major branches, given in the chronological order of their emergence according to David Anthony:^[10]

1. Anatolian (Asia Minor), the earliest attested branch. Emerged around 4200 BC.^[10] Isolated terms in Luwian/Hittite mentioned in Semitic Old Assyrian texts from the 20th and 19th centuries BC, Hittite texts from about 1650 BC;^[11][12] extinct by Late Antiquity.
2. Tocharian, emerged around 3700 BC,^[10] extant in two dialects (Turfanian and Kuchean, or Tocharian A and B), attested from roughly the 6th to the 9th century AD. Marginalized by the Old Turkic Uyghur Khaganate and probably extinct by the 10th century.
3. Germanic (from Proto-Germanic), emerged around 3300 BC,^[10] earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century AD, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century AD. Old English manuscript tradition from about the 8th century AD.
4. Italic, including Latin and its descendants (the Romance languages), emerged around 3000 BC,^[10] attested from the 7th century BC.
5. Celtic, descended from Proto-Celtic, emerged around 3000 BC.^[10] Lepontic inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Celtiberian from the 2nd century BC; Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions from the 5th century AD, earliest inscriptions in Old Welsh from the 8th century AD.
6. Armenian, emerged around 2800 BC.^[10] Alphabet writings known from the beginning of the 5th century AD.
7. Balto-Slavic, emerged around 2800 BC,^[10] believed by most Indo-Europeanists^[13] to form a phylogenetic unit, while a minority ascribes similarities to prolonged language contact.
   • Slavic (from Proto-Slavic), attested from the 9th century AD (possibly earlier; see Slavic runes), earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
   • Baltic, attested from the 14th century AD; for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European (PIE).
8. Hellenic, emerged around 2500 BC.^[10] Fragmentary records in Mycenaean Greek from between 1450 and 1350 BC have been found.^[14] Homeric texts date to the 8th century BC. (See Proto-Greek, History of Greek.)
9. Indo-Iranian, emerged around 2200 BC,^[10] attested circa 1400 BC, descended from Proto-Indo-Iranian (dated to the late 3rd millennium BC).
   • Indo-Aryan (including Dardic), attested from around 1400 BC in Hittite texts from Asia Minor, showing traces of Indo-Aryan words.^[15][16] Epigraphically from the 3rd century BC in the form of Prakrit (Edicts of Ashoka). The Rigveda is assumed to preserve intact records via oral tradition dating from about the mid-2nd millennium BC in the form of Vedic Sanskrit.
   • Iranian or Iranic, attested from roughly 1000 BC in the form of Avestan. Epigraphically from 520 BC in the form of Old Persian (Behistun inscription).
   • Nuristani
10. Albanian, attested from the 14th century AD; Proto-Albanian language likely evolved from Paleo-Balkan predecessors.^[17][18]

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

• Illyrian: possibly related to Messapian, Albanian, or both
• Venetic: shares several similarities with Latin and the Italic languages, but also has some affinities with other IE languages, especially Germanic and Celtic.^[19][20]
• Liburnian: doubtful affiliation, features shared with Venetic, Illyrian, and Indo-Hittite, significant transition of the Pre-Indo-European elements
• Messapian: not conclusively deciphered
• Phrygian: language of the ancient Phrygians
• Paionian: extinct language once spoken north of Macedon
• Thracian: possibly including Dacian
• Dacian: possibly very close to Thracian
• Ancient Macedonian: proposed relationship to Greek.
• Ligurian—possibly close to or part of Celtic.^[21]
• Sicel: an ancient language spoken by the Sicels (Greek Sikeloi, Latin Siculi), one of the three indigenous (i.e. pre-Greek and pre-Punic) tribes of Sicily. Proposed relationship to Latin or proto-Illyrian (Pre-Indo-European) at an earlier stage.^[22]
• Lusitanian: possibly related to (or part of) Celtic, Ligurian, or Italic
• Cimmerian: possibly Iranic, Thracian, or Celtic

Grouping

Membership of these languages in the Indo-European language family is determined by genetic relationships, meaning that all members are presumed descendants of a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European. (The word "genetic" here has nothing to do with human genetics; it refers to relationships between languages.) Membership in the various branches, groups and subgroups of Indo-European is also genetic, but here the defining factors are shared innovations among various languages, suggesting a common ancestor that split off from other Indo-European groups. For example, what makes the Germanic languages a branch of Indo-European is that much of their structure and phonology can be stated in rules that apply to all of them. Many of their common features are presumed innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, the source of all the Germanic languages.

Tree versus wave model

The "tree model" is considered an appropriate representation of the genetic history of a language family if communities do not remain in contact after their languages have started to diverge. In this case, subgroups defined by shared innovations form a nested pattern. The tree model is not appropriate in cases where languages remain in contact as they diversify; in such cases subgroups may overlap, and the "wave model" is a more accurate representation.^[23] Most approaches to Indo-European subgrouping to date have assumed that the tree model is by and large valid for Indo-European;^[24] however, there is also a long tradition of wave-model approaches.^[25][26][27]

In addition to genetic changes, many of the early changes in Indo-European languages can be attributed to language contact. 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, because English and continental West Germanic were not a linguistic area). In a similar vein, there are many similar innovations in Germanic and Balto-Slavic that are far more likely 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, which is in agreement with the wave model. The Balkan sprachbund even features areal convergence among members of very different branches.

Using an extension to the Ringe-Warnow model of language evolution, early IE was confirmed to have featured limited contact between distinct lineages, whereas only the Germanic subfamily exhibited a less treelike behaviour as it acquired some characteristics from neighbours early in its evolution rather than from its direct ancestors. The internal diversification of especially West Germanic is cited to have been radically non-treelike.^[28]

Proposed subgroupings

Hypothetical Indo-European phylogenetic clades
Balkan
Daco-Thracian Graeco-Armenian Graeco-Aryan Graeco-Phrygian Hellenic Thraco-Illyrian
Other
Indo-Hittite Italo-Celtic

Specialists have postulated the existence of higher-order subgroups such as Italo-Celtic, Graeco-Armenian, Graeco-Aryan, and Balto-Slavo-Germanic. However, unlike the ten traditional branches, these are all controversial to a greater or lesser degree.^[29]

The Italo-Celtic subgroup was at one point uncontroversial, considered by Antoine Meillet to be even better established than Balto-Slavic.^[30] The main lines of evidence included the genitive suffix -ī; the superlative suffix -m̥mo; the change of /p/ to /kʷ/ before another /kʷ/ in the same word (as in penkʷe > *kʷenkʷe > Latin quīnque, Old Irish cóic); and the subjunctive morpheme -ā-.^[31] This evidence was prominently challenged by Calvert Watkins;^[32] but other, stronger evidence has since emerged.^[33]

Evidence for a relationship between Greek and Armenian includes the regular change of the second laryngeal to a at the beginnings of words, as well as terms for "woman" and "sheep".^[34] Greek and Indo-Iranian share innovations mainly in verbal morphology and patterns of nominal derivation.^[35] Relations have also been proposed between Phrygian and Greek,^[36] and between Thracian and Armenian.^[37][38] Some fundamental shared features, like the aorist (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^[39] and Tocharian. Shared features with Balto-Slavic languages, on the other hand (especially present and preterit formations), might be due to later contacts.^[40] 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^[41] and the preservation of laryngeals.^[42] 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.^[43] Hans J. Holm, based on lexical calculations, arrives at a picture roughly replicating the general scholarly opinion and refuting the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.^[44]

Satem and centum languages

The division of the Indo-European languages into satem and centum groups was put forward by Peter von Bradke in 1890, although a similar type of division had been proposed by Karl Brugmann in 1886. In the satem languages, which include the Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian branches, as well as (in most respects) Albanian and Armenian, the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European palatovelars remained distinct and were fricativized, while the labiovelars merged with the "plain velars". In the centum languages, the palatovelars merged with the plain velars, while the labiovelars remained distinct. The results of these alternative developments are exemplified by the words for "hundred" in Avestan (satem) and Latin (centum) – the initial palatovelar developed into a fricative [s] in the former, but became an ordinary velar [k] in the latter.

Rather than being a genetic separation, the centum–satem division is commonly seen as resulting from innovative changes that spread across PIE dialect branches over a particular geographical area; the centum–satem isogloss intersects a number of other isoglosses that mark distinctions between features in the early IE branches. It may be that the centum branches in fact reflect the original state of affairs in PIE, and only the satem branches shared a set of innovations, which affected all but the peripheral areas of the PIE dialect continuum.^[45] Kortlandt proposes that the ancestors of Balts and Slavs took part in satemization before being drawn later into the western Indo-European sphere.^[46]

Suggested macrofamilies

Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages form part of one of several hypothetical macrofamilies. However, these theories remain highly controversial, not being accepted by most linguists in the field. Some of smaller proposed macrofamilies are:

• Pontic, postulated by John Colarusso, which joins Indo-European with Northwest Caucasian.
• Indo-Uralic, joining Indo-European with Uralic.

Other, greater proposed families including Indo-European languages, are:

• Eurasiatic, a theory championed by Joseph Greenberg.
• Nostratic, comprising all or some of the Eurasiatic languages, as well as the Kartvelian, Uralic, Dravidian (or even the Elamo-Dravidian macrofamily), Altaic, and Afroasiatic language families.

Objections to such groupings are not based on any theoretical claim about the likely historical existence or non-existence of such macrofamilies; it is entirely reasonable to suppose that they might have existed. The serious difficulty lies in identifying the details of actual relationships between language families, because it is very hard to find concrete evidence that transcends chance resemblance, or is not equally likely explained as being due to borrowing (including Wanderwörter, which can travel very long distances). Because the signal-to-noise ratio in historical linguistics declines steadily over time, at great enough time-depths it becomes open to reasonable doubt that it can even be possible to distinguish between signal and noise.

Evolution

Proto-Indo-European

The proposed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. 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.

Using a mathematical analysis borrowed from evolutionary biology, Don Ringe and Tandy Warnow propose the following evolutionary tree of Indo-European branches:^[47]

• Pre-Anatolian (before 3500 BC)
• Pre-Tocharian
• Pre-Italic and Pre-Celtic (before 2500 BC)
• Pre-Armenian and Pre-Greek (after 2500 BC)
• Pre-Germanic and Pre-Balto-Slavic;^[47] proto-Germanic ca. 500 BC^[48]
• Proto-Indo-Iranian (2000 BC)

David Anthony proposes the following sequence:^[10]

• Pre-Anatolian (4200 BC)
• Pre-Tocharian (3700 BC)
• Pre-Germanic (3300 BC)
• Pre-Italic and Pre-Celtic (3000 BC)
• Pre-Armenian (2800 BC)
• Pre-Balto-Slavic (2800 BC)
• Pre-Greek (2500 BC)
• Proto-Indo-Iranian (2200 BC); split between Iranian and Old Indic 1800 BC

From 1500 BC the following sequence may be given:

• 1500 BC–1000 BC: 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-Italic speakers 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. Baltic languages are spoken in a huge area from present-day Poland to the Ural Mountains.^[49] Proto Germanic. Homer and the beginning of Classical Antiquity. The Vedic Civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Siddhartha Gautama preaches Buddhism. 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.
• 500 BC–1 BC/AD: Classical Antiquity: spread of Greek and Latin throughout the Mediterranean and, during the Hellenistic period (Indo-Greeks), to Central Asia and the Hindukush. Kushan Empire, Mauryan Empire. Proto-Germanic. The Anatolian languages are extinct.
• 1 BC/AD 500: Late Antiquity, Gupta period; attestation of Armenian. Proto-Slavic. The Roman Empire and then the Migration period marginalize the Celtic languages to the British Isles.
• 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. Slavic languages spread over wide areas in central, eastern and southeastern Europe, largely replacing Romance in the Balkans (with the exception of Romanian) and whatever was left of the paleo-Balkan languages with the exception of Albanian.
• 1000–1500: Late Middle Ages: Attestation of Albanian and Baltic.
• 1500–2000: Early Modern period to present: Colonialism results in the spread of Indo-European languages to every continent, most notably Romance (North, Central and South America, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, West Asia), West Germanic (English in North America, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and Australia; to a lesser extent Dutch and German), and Russian to Central Asia and North Asia.

Important languages for reconstruction

In reconstructing the history of the Indo-European languages and the form of the Proto-Indo-European language, some languages have been of particular importance. These generally include the ancient Indo-European languages that are both well-attested and documented at an early date, although some languages from later periods are important if they are particularly linguistically conservative (most notably, Lithuanian). Early poetry is of special significance because of the rigid poetic meter normally employed, which makes it possible to reconstruct a number of features (e.g. vowel length) that were either unwritten or corrupted in the process of transmission down to the earliest extant written manuscripts.

Most important of all:

• Vedic Sanskrit (c. 1500 – 500 BC). This language is unique in that its source documents were all composed orally, and were passed down through oral tradition (shakha schools) for c. 2,000 years before ever being written down. The oldest documents are all in poetic form; oldest and most important of all is the Rig Veda (c. 1500 BC).
• Mycenaean Greek (c. 1450 BC)^[50] and Ancient Greek (c. 750 – 400 BC). Mycenaean Greek is the oldest recorded form, but its value is lessened by the limited material, restricted subject matter, and highly ambiguous writing system. More important is Ancient Greek, documented extensively beginning with the two Homeric poems (the Iliad and the Odyssey, c. 750 BC).
• Hittite (c. 1700 – 1200 BC). This is the earliest-recorded of all Indo-European languages, and highly divergent from the others due to the early separation of the Anatolian languages from the remainder. It possesses some highly archaic features found only fragmentarily, if at all, in other languages. At the same time, however, it appears to have undergone a large number of early phonological and grammatical changes which, combined with the ambiguities of its writing system, hinder its usefulness somewhat.

Other primary sources:

• Latin, attested in a huge amount of poetic and prose material in the Classical period (c. 200 BC – 100 AD) and limited older material from as early as c. 600 BC.
• Gothic (the most archaic well-documented Germanic language, c. 350 AD), along with the combined witness of the other old Germanic languages: most importantly, Old English (c. 800 – 1000 AD), Old High German (c. 750 – 1000 AD) and Old Norse (c. 1100 – 1300 AD, with limited earlier sources dating all the way back to c. 200 AD).
• Old Avestan (c. 1700 – 1200 BC) and Younger Avestan (c. 900 BC). Documentation is sparse, but nonetheless quite important due to its highly archaic nature.
• Modern Lithuanian, with limited records in Old Lithuanian (c. 1500 – 1700 AD).
• Old Church Slavonic (c. 900 – 1000 AD).

Other secondary sources, of lesser value due to poor attestation:

• Luwian, Lycian, Lydian and other Anatolian languages (c. 1400 – 400 BC).
• Oscan, Umbrian and other Old Italic languages (c. 600 – 200 BC).
• Old Persian (c. 500 BC).
• Old Prussian (c. 1350 – 1600 AD); even more archaic than Lithuanian.

Other secondary sources, of lesser value due to extensive phonological changes and relatively limited attestation:

• Old Irish (c. 700 – 850 AD).
• Tocharian (c. 500 – 800 AD), underwent large phonetic shifts and mergers in the proto-language, and has an almost entirely reworked declension system.
• Classical Armenian (c. 400 – 500 AD).
• Albanian (c. 1450 – current time).

Sound changes

As the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language broke up, its sound system diverged as well, changing according to various sound laws evidenced in the daughter languages.

PIE is normally reconstructed with a complex system of 15 stop consonants, including an unusual three-way phonation (voicing) distinction between voiceless, voiced and "voiced aspirated" (i.e. breathy voiced) stops, and a three-way distinction among velar consonants (k-type sounds) between "palatal" ḱ ǵ ǵh, "plain velar" k g gh and labiovelar kʷ gʷ gʷh. (The correctness of the terms palatal and plain velar is disputed; see Proto-Indo-European phonology.) All daughter languages have reduced the number of distinctions among these sounds, often in divergent ways.

As an example, in English, one of the Germanic languages, the following are some of the major changes that happened:

None of the daughter-language families (except possibly Anatolian, particularly Luvian) reflect the plain velar stops differently from the other two series, and there is even a certain amount of dispute whether this series existed at all in PIE. The major distinction between centum and satem languages corresponds to the outcome of the PIE plain velars:

• The "central" satem languages (Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, Albanian, and Armenian) reflect both "plain velar" and labiovelar stops as plain velars, often with secondary palatalization before a front vowel (e i ē ī). The "palatal" stops are palatalized and often appear as sibilants (usually but not always distinct from the secondarily palatalized stops).
• The "peripheral" centum languages (Germanic, Italic, Celtic, Greek, Anatolian and Tocharian) reflect both "palatal" and "plain velar" stops as plain velars, while the labiovelars continue unchanged, often with later reduction into plain labial or velar consonants.

The three-way PIE distinction between voiceless, voiced and voiced aspirated stops is considered extremely unusual from the perspective of linguistic typology—particularly in the existence of voiced aspirated stops without a corresponding series of voiceless aspirated stops. None of the various daughter-language families continue it unchanged, with numerous "solutions" to the apparently unstable PIE situation:

• The Indo-Aryan languages preserve the three series unchanged but have evolved a fourth series of voiceless aspirated consonants.
• The Iranian languages probably passed through the same stage, subsequently changing the aspirated stops into fricatives.
• Greek converted the voiced aspirates into voiceless aspirates.
• Italic probably passed through the same stage, but reflects the voiced aspirates as voiceless fricatives, especially f (or sometimes plain voiced stops in Latin).
• Celtic, Balto-Slavic, Anatolian, and Albanian merge the voiced aspirated into plain voiced stops.
• Germanic and Armenian change all three series in a chain shift (e.g. with bh b p becoming b p f (known as Grimm's law in Germanic).

Among the other notable changes affecting consonants are:

• The Ruki sound law (s becomes /ʃ/ before r, u, k, i) in the satem languages.
• Loss of prevocalic p in Proto-Celtic.
• Development of prevocalic s to h in Proto-Greek, with later loss of h between vowels.
• Verner's law in Proto-Germanic.
• Grassmann's law (dissimilation of aspirates) independently in Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian.

The following table shows the basic outcomes of PIE consonants in some of the most important daughter languages for the purposes of reconstruction. For a fuller table, see Indo-European sound laws.

Proto-Indo-European consonants and their reflexes in selected Indo-European daughter languages

PIE	Skr.	O.C.S.	Lith.	Greek	Latin	Old Irish	Gothic	English	Examples
									PIE	Eng.	Skr.	Gk.	Lat.	Lith. etc.
*p	p; phH	p				Ø; chT [x]	f; `-b- [β]	f; -v/f-	*pṓds ~ *ped-	foot	pád-	poús (podós)	pēs (pedis)	pãdas
*t	t; thH	t				t; -th- [θ]	þ [θ]; `-d- [ð]; tT-	th; `-d-; tT-	*tréyes	three	tráyas	treĩs	trēs	trỹs
*ḱ	ś [ɕ]	s	š [ʃ]	k	c [k]	c [k]; -ch- [x]	h; `-g- [ɣ]	h; -Ø-; `-y-	*ḱm̥tóm	hund(red)	śatám	he-katón	centum	šimtas
*k	k; cE [tʃ]; khH	k; čE [tʃ]; cE' [ts]	k						*kreuh₂ "raw meat"	OE hrēaw > raw	kravíṣ-	kréas	cruor	kraûjas
*kʷ				p; tE; k(u)	qu [kʷ]; c(O) [k]		ƕ [ʍ]; `-gw/w-	wh; `-w-	*kʷid, kʷod	what	kím	tí	quid, quod	kàs
									*kʷekʷlom	wheel	cakrá-	kúklos		kãklas
*b	b; bhH	b				b [b]; -[β]-	p
*d	d; dhH	d				d [d]; -[ð]-	t		*déḱm̥(t)	ten, Goth. taíhun	dáśa	déka	decem	dẽšimt
*ǵ	j [dʒ]; hH [ɦ]	z	ž [ʒ]	g		g [ɡ]; -[ɣ]-	k	c / k; chE'	*ǵénu, *ǵnéu-	OE cnēo > knee	jā́nu	gónu	genu
*g	g; jE [dʒ]; ghH; hH,E [ɦ]	g; žE [ʒ]; dzE'	g						*yugóm	yoke	yugám	zugón	iugum	jùngas
*gʷ				b; de; g(u)	u [w > v]; gun− [ɡʷ]	b [b]; -[β]-	q [kʷ]	qu	*gʷīw-	quick "alive"	jīvá-	bíos, bíotos	vīvus	gývas
*bʰ	bh; b..Ch	b		ph; p..Ch	f-; b		b [b]; -[β]-; -f	b; -v/f-(rl)	*bʰerō	bear "carry"	bhar-	phérō	ferō	OCS berǫ
*dʰ	dh; d..Ch	d		th; t..Ch	f-; d; b(r),l,u-	d [d]; -[ð]-	d [d]; -[ð]-; -þ	d	*dʰwer-, dʰur-	door	dhvā́raḥ	thurā́	forēs	dùrys
*ǵʰ	h [ɦ]; j..Ch	z	ž [ʒ]	kh; k..Ch	h; h/gR	g [ɡ]; -[ɣ]-	g; -g- [ɣ]; -g [x]	g; -y/w-(rl)	*ǵʰans-	goose, OHG gans	haṁsáḥ	khḗn	(h)ānser	žąsìs
*gʰ	gh; hE [ɦ]; g..Ch; jE..Ch	g; žE [ʒ]; dzE'	g
*gʷʰ				ph; thE; kh(u); p..Ch; tE..Ch; k(u)..Ch	f-; g / -u- [w]; ngu [ɡʷ]		g; b-; -w-; ngw	g; b-; -w-	*sneigʷʰ-	snow	sneha-	nípha	nivis	sniẽgas
									*gʷʰerm-	??warm	gharmáḥ	thermós	formus	Latv. gar̂me
*s	s			h-; -s; s(T); -Ø-; [¯](R)	s; -r-	s [s]; -[h]-	s; `-z-	s; `-r-	*septḿ̥	seven	saptá	heptá	septem	septynì
	cruki- [ʂ]	xruki- [x]	šruki- [ʃ]						*h₂eusōs "dawn"	east	uṣā́ḥ	āṓs	aurōra	aušra
*m	m					m [m]; -[w̃]-	m		*mūs	mouse	mū́ṣ-	mũs	mūs	OCS myšĭ
*-m	-m	-˛ [˜]	-n		-m	-n	-Ø		*ḱm̥tóm	hund(red)	śatám	(he)katón	centum	OPrus simtan
*n	n	n; -˛ [˜]	n						*nokʷt-	night	nákt-	núkt-	noct-	naktis
*l	r (dial. l)	l							*leuk-	light	rócate	leukós	lūx	laũkas
*r	r								*h₁reudʰ-	red	rudhirá-	eruthrós	ruber	raũdas
*i̯	y [j]	j [j]		z [zd > dz > z] / h; -Ø-	i [j]; -Ø-	Ø	j	y	*yugóm	yoke	yugám	zugón	iugum	jùngas
*u̯	v [ʋ]	v	v [ʋ]	w > h / Ø	u [w > v]	f; -Ø-	w		*h₂weh₁n̥to-	wind	vā́taḥ	áenta	ventus	vėtra
PIE	Skr.	O.C.S.	Lith.	Greek	Latin	Old Irish	Gothic	English

Notes:

• C- At the beginning of a word.
• -C- Between vowels.
• -C At the end of a word.
• `-C- Following an unstressed vowel (Verner's law).
• -C-^(rl) Between vowels, or between a vowel and r, l (on either side).
• C^T Before a (PIE) stop (p, t, k).
• C^T− After a (PIE) obstruent (p, t, k, etc.; s).
• C^(T) Before or after an obstruent (p, t, k, etc.; s).
• C^H Before an original laryngeal.
• C^E Before a (PIE) front vowel (i, e).
• C^E' Before secondary (post-PIE) front-vowels.
• C^e Before e.
• C^(u) Before or after a (PIE) u (boukólos rule).
• C^(O) Before or after a (PIE) o, u (boukólos rule).
• Cⁿ⁻ After n.
• C^R Before a sonorant (r, l, m, n).
• C^(R) Before or after a sonorant (r, l, m, n).
• C^(r),l,u− Before r, l or after r, u.
• C^ruki− After r, u, k, i (Ruki sound law).
• C^..Ch Before an aspirated consonant in the next syllable (Grassmann's law, a.k.a. dissimilation of aspirates).
• C^E..Ch Before a (PIE) front vowel (i, e) as well as before an aspirated consonant in the next syllable (Grassmann's law, a.k.a. dissimilation of aspirates).
• C^(u)..Ch Before or after a (PIE) u as well as before an aspirated consonant in the next syllable (Grassmann's law, a.k.a. dissimilation of aspirates).

Comparison of conjugations

The following table presents a comparison of conjugations of the thematic present indicative of the verbal root *bʰer- of the English verb to bear and its reflexes in various early attested IE languages and their modern descendants or relatives, showing that all languages had in the early stage an inflectional verb system.

	Proto-Indo-European (*bʰer- 'to carry')
I (1st sg.)	*bʰéroh₂
You (2nd sg.)	*bʰéresi
He/She/It (3rd sg.)	*bʰéreti
We (1st dual)	*bʰérowos
You (2nd dual)	*bʰéreth₁es
They (3rd dual)	*bʰéretes
We (1st pl.)	*bʰéromos
You (2nd pl.)	*bʰérete
They (3rd pl.)	*bʰéronti

Major subgroup	Hellenic	Indo-Iranian		Italic	Celtic	Armenian	Germanic	Balto-Slavic		Albanian
		Indo-Aryan	Iranian					Baltic	Slavic
Ancient representative	Ancient Greek	Vedic Sanskrit	Avestan	Latin	Old Irish	Classical Arm.	Gothic	Old Prussian	Old Church Sl.	Old Albanian
I (1st sg.)	phérō	bhárāmi	barā	ferō	biru; berim	berem	baíra /bɛra/		berǫ	*berja
You (2nd sg.)	phéreis	bhárasi	barahi	fers	biri; berir	beres	baíris		bereši
He/She/It (3rd sg.)	phérei	bhárati	baraiti	fert	berid	berē	baíriþ		beretъ
We (1st dual)	—	bhárāvas	barāvahi	—	—	—	baíros		berevě
You (2nd dual)	phéreton	bhárathas	—	—	—	—	baírats		bereta
They (3rd dual)	phéreton	bháratas	baratō	—	—	—	—		berete
We (1st pl.)	phéromen	bhárāmas	barāmahi	ferimus	bermai	beremk`	baíram		beremъ
You (2nd pl.)	phérete	bháratha	baraϑa	fertis	beirthe	berēk`	baíriþ		berete
They (3rd pl.)	phérousi	bháranti	barəṇti	ferunt	berait	beren	baírand		berǫtъ
Modern representative	Modern Greek	Hindustani	Persian	French	Irish	Armenian (Eastern; Western)	German	Lithuanian	Czech	Albanian
I (1st sg.)	férno	(maiṃ) bharūṃ	(man) {mi}baram	(je) {con}fère	beirim	berum em; g'perem	(ich) {ge}bäre	beriu	beru	(unë) bie
You (2nd sg.)	férnis	(tū) bhare	(to) {mi}bari	(tu) {con}fères	beirir	berum es; g'peres	(du) {ge}bierst	beri	bereš	(ti) bie
He/She/It (3rd sg.)	férni	(vah) bhare	(un) {mi}bare / (ān) {mi}barad	(il) {con}fère	beireann; %beiridh	berum ē; g'perē	(er)(sie)(es) {ge}biert	beria	bere	(ai/ajo) bie
We (1st dual)								beriava
You (2nd dual)
They (3rd dual)								beria
We (1st pl.)	férnume	(ham) bhareṃ	(mā) {mi}barim	(nous) {con}férons	beirimid; beiream	berum enk`; g'perenk`	(wir) {ge}bären	beriame	berem(e)	(ne) biem
You (2nd pl.)	férnete	(tum) bharo	(šomā) {mi}barid	(vous) {con}férez	beireann sibh; %beirthaoi	berum ek`; g'perek`	(ihr) {ge}bärt	beriate	berete	(ju) bini
They (3rd pl.)	férnun	(ve) bhareṃ	(unā) / (ānān) {mi}barand	(ils) {con}fèrent	beirid	berum en; g'peren	(sie) {ge}bären	beria	berou	(ata/ato) bien

While similarities are still visible between the modern descendants and relatives of these ancient languages, the differences have increased over time. Some IE languages have moved from synthetic verb systems to largely periphrastic systems. The pronouns of periphrastic forms are in brackets when they appear. Some of these verbs have undergone a change in meaning as well.

• In Modern Irish beir usually only carries the meaning to bear in the sense of bearing a child; its common meanings are to catch, grab.
• The Hindi verb bharnā, the continuation of the Sanskrit verb, can have a variety of meanings, but the most common is "to fill". The forms given in the table, although etymologically derived from the present indicative, now have the meaning of subjunctive. The present indicative is conjugated periphrastically, using a participle (etymologically the Sanskrit present participle bharant-) and an auxiliary: maiṃ bhartā hūṃ, tū bhartā hai, vah bhartā hai, ham bharte haiṃ, tum bharte ho, ve bharte haiṃ (masculine forms).
• German is not directly descended from Gothic, but the Gothic forms are a close approximation of what the early West Germanic forms of c. 400 AD would have looked like. The cognate of Germanic beranan (English bear) survives in German only in the compound gebären, meaning "bear (a child)".
• The Latin verb ferre is irregular, and not a good representative of a normal thematic verb. In French, other verbs now mean "to carry" and ferre only survives in compounds such as souffrir "to suffer" (from Latin sub- and ferre) and conférer "to confer" (from Latin "con-" and "ferre").
• In Modern Greek, phero φέρω (modern transliteration fero) "to bear" is still used but only in specific contexts and is most common in such compounds as αναφέρω, διαφέρω, εισφέρω, εκφέρω, καταφέρω, προφέρω, προαναφέρω, προσφέρω etc. The form that is (very) common today is pherno φέρνω (modern transliteration ferno) meaning "to bring". Additionally, the perfective form of pherno (used for the subjunctive voice and also for the future tense) is also phero.
• In Modern Russian брать (brat') carries the meaning to take. Бремя (br'em'a) means burden, as something heavy to bear, and derivative беременность (b'er'em'ennost') means pregnancy.

Comparison of cognates

Modern-day distribution of Indo-European languages

Today, Indo-European languages are spoken on all inhabited continents, by almost 3 billion native speakers,^[51] the largest number by far for any recognised language family. Of the 20 languages with the largest numbers of native speakers according to Ethnologue, 11 are Indo-European: Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, French, Marathi, and Urdu, accounting for over 1.7 billion native speakers.^[52]

Following centuries of European colonization, many modern countries now have an Indo-European language as their official language.

See also

• Afroasiatic languages
• Grammatical conjugation
• The Horse, The Wheel and Language (book)
• Indo-European copula
• Indo-European sound laws
• Indo-European studies
• Indo-European vocabulary
• Indo-Semitic languages
• Language family
• Languages of Asia
• Languages of Europe
• Languages of India
• List of Indo-European languages
• Proto-Indo-European root
• Proto-Indo-European religion

References

Sources

Further reading

• Beekes, Robert S. P. (1995). Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 
• Chakrabarti, Byomkes (1994). A comparative study of Santali and Bengali. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co. ISBN 81-7074-128-9. 
• Collinge, N. E. (1985). The Laws of Indo-European. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 
• 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. 
• Meillet, Antoine. Esquisse d’une grammaire comparée de l’arménien classique, 1903.
• Ramat, Paolo; Ramat, Anna Giacalone (1998). The Indo-European languages. Routledge. 
• Schleicher, August, A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages (1861/62).
• Strazny, Philip; Trask, R.L., eds. (2000). Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics (1 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-57958-218-0. 
• Szemerényi, Oswald (1957). "The problem of Balto-Slav unity". Kratylos 2: 97–123. 
• Watkins, Calvert (2000). The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-618-08250-6. 
• Remys, Edmund, General distinguishing features of various Indo-European languages and their relationship to Lithuanian. Berlin, New York: Indogermanische Forschungen, Vol. 112, 2007.
• P. Chantraine (1968), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, Klincksieck, Paris.

External links

Databases

• Dyen, Isidore; Kruskal, Joseph; Black, Paul (1997). "Comparative Indo-European". wordgumbo. Retrieved 13 December 2009. 
• "Indo-European". LLOW Languages of the World. Retrieved 14 December 2009. 
• "Indo-European Documentation Center". Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. 2009. Retrieved 14 December 2009. 
• Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2009). "Language Family Trees: Indo-European". Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Online version (Sixteenth ed.). Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. .
• "Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien: TITUS" (in German). TITUS, University of Frankfurt. 2003. Retrieved 13 December 2009. 
• "Indo-European Lexical Cognacy Database (IELex)". Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. 

Lexica

• "Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (IEED)". Leiden, Netherlands: Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Leiden University. Retrieved 14 December 2009. 
• "Indo-European Roots Index". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth ed.). Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. August 22, 2008 [2000]. Archived from the original on 1 October 2009. Retrieved 9 December 2009. 
• Köbler, Gerhard (2014). Indogermanisches Wörterbuch (in German) (5th ed.). Gerhard Köbler. Retrieved 29 March 2015. 
• Schalin, Johan (2009). "Lexicon of Early Indo-European Loanwords Preserved in Finnish". Johan Schalin. Retrieved 9 December 2009. 

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