What does Indo-European mean exactly?
Indo-European(Adjective) Of or relating to the languages originally spoken in Europe and Western Asia. Indo-European(Adjective) Of or relating to the hypothetical parent language of the Indo-European language family. Also called Proto-Indo-European and abbreviated PIE.
Which European languages are not Indo-European?
You may have noticed that a few languages spoken on the European continent are not included in the Indo-European family of languages. Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian belong to the Uralic (also called Finno-Ugric) family, and Basque (spoken in the Pyrenees region) has no genetic relation to any other language. Two branches, Anatolian and Tocharian, are also not included in this diagram because they are considered extinct.
What does Indo-European language stand for?
How is Indo-European Language abbreviated? IEL stands for Indo-European Language. IEL is defined as Indo-European Language somewhat frequently.
Which Indo-European language is closely related to Germanic?
English language, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family that is closely related to the Frisian, German, and Dutch (in Belgium called Flemish) languages.
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Why is Indo-European called Indo-European?
Thomas Young first used the term Indo-European in 1813, deriving it from the geographical extremes of the language family: from Western Europe to North India. A synonym is Indo-Germanic (Idg. or IdG.), specifying the family's southeasternmost and northwesternmost branches.
What does the concept Indo-European mean?
Indo-European. adjective. denoting, belonging to, or relating to a family of languages that includes English and many other culturally and politically important languages of the world: a characteristic feature, esp of the older languages such as Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, is inflection showing gender, number, and case.
What were Indo-Europeans called?
In regard to terminology, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the term Aryan was used to refer to the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their descendants.
Who coined the term Indo-European?
The term Indo-European itself now current in English literature, was coined in 1813 by the British scholar Sir Thomas Young, although at that time, there was no consensus as to the naming of the recently discovered language family. However, he seems to have used it as a geographical term.
What is the oldest language in the world?
World's oldest language is Sanskrit. The Sanskrit language is called Devbhasha. All European languages seem inspired by Sanskrit. All the universities and educational institutions spread across the world consider Sanskrit as the most ancient language.
Is Russian Indo-European?
Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages. Within the Slavic branch, Russian is one of three living members of the East Slavic group, the other two being Belarusian and Ukrainian. Written examples of East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards.
What language was before Indo-European?
These pre-Indo-European languages have survived to modern times: in the Indian subcontinent, the Dravidian languages, Munda languages (a branch of the Austroasiatic languages), Tibeto-Burman languages, Nihali, Kusunda, Vedda and Burushaski.
Is Turkish Indo-European?
So unique that Turkish language is actually not a part of the Indo-European language family. Unlike English, German, Italian, Hindi, Farsi, Kurdish, Russian or Armenian languages, Turkish isn't a member of the club.
Is Japanese an Indo-European language?
A lot of the sources I have found seem to suggest Japanese is a very distant cousin of the Indo-European languages (but probbably slightly closer to Native American languages).
Are German Indo-European?
German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English, Frisian, and Dutch (Netherlandic, Flemish). The recorded history of Germanic languages begins with their speakers' first contact with the Romans, in the 1st century bce.
What are the six Indo-European languages?
There are six Indo-European languages spoken by millions of people in Europe today, including: Hellenic (Greek); Romance (Latin-based languages of the Mediterranean and Romanian); Celtic (largely extinct, but Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton); Germanic (Scandinavian languages, modern German, Dutch, and English); Balto- ...
Is Egyptian An Indo-European language?
Ancient Egyptian is considered to be a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, meaning that ancient Egyptian has similarities to Akkadian, Arabic and Hebrew, and is quite different from Indo-European languages like English, French and German.
What is Indo European?
Indo european , the term was derived for the language family , as we have indo persian ,indo germanic and other language family roots. Now the second point why these languages are called according to these family names, it is believed that sanskrit is the most ancient language though there are several still existing but sanskrit belongs Indo family or civilisation. There are several similarities can be found amongst these languages such as gender system and many more.
Where did Indo-European roots originate?
Languages thought to branch off a proto-Indo-European root fanned out eastward to the Bay of Bengal and (before 1492) westward to Iceland, hence the earlier, now-obsolete term Indo-Germanic, or nowadays the more inclusive Indo-European. Comparable other language group terms are Afro-Asiatic (Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic), Finno-Ugric, or Sino-Tibetan. All refer to geographic spread, such as evident.
Where did Sanskrit originate?
Originated and migrated through europe to India. There are 3 types of Indo European languages & SANSKRIT is belong to Old Indo Aryan, prakrit in Middle Indo Aryan and finally the MILs are Modern Indo Aryan.
Where did the proto-Indo-Europeans come from?
Proto-Indo-Europeans actually emerged on the Pontic Steppe in what is now Ukraine and Southern Russia, see the GIF at the top of the Wikipedia article. Their genes are more prevalent further north however since the more northerly regions had a lower population which was easier to replace.
Can you derive Indo-European languages from Sanskrit?
No, because you can’t derive the other Indo-European languages from Sanskrit, but, on the other hand, you can derive Sanskrit and all the other Indo-European languages from an approximately reconstructed earlier language . For instance, you can’t regularly derive Latin centum, Tocharian B kante, Welsh cant or Latvian simts from Sanskrit śatá through regular sound correspondences that are also equally valid to explain the etymology of many other words. If all the other Indo-European languages had evolved from Sanskrit as we know it, they would be very different from what they really are.
Did the British use written language?
A short answer is that we don't know. The British did not use written language until approaching Roman times, and even then present evidence suggests it was mostly tribal chiefs trying to emulate Roman nobles across the Channel with Latin inscriptions on coinage minted with their likenesses upon them.
Is Indo-European a language?
Not “Indo-European language”, but “Indo-European languages”. It is a group of demonstrably related languages, which reach from Northern India to Europe.
Where did Indo-European language originate?
By the time the first written records appeared, Indo-European had already evolved into numerous languages spoken across much of Europe and south-west Asia. Written evidence of Indo-European appeared during the Bronze Age in the form of Mycenaean Greek and the Anatolian languages, Hittite and Luwian.
What are the Indo-European languages?
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to western and southern Eurasia. It comprises most of the languages of Europe together with those of the northern Indian subcontinent and the Iranian Plateau. Some European languages of this family, such as English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, and Spanish, have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, of which there are eight groups with languages still alive today: Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic; and another six subdivisions which are now extinct.
What language did Van Boxhorn think was similar to the European language?
In 1647, Dutch linguist and scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn noted the similarity among certain Asian and European languages and theorized 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.
How many people speak Indo-European?
In total, 46 percent of the world's population (3.2 billion) speaks an Indo-European language as a first language, by far the highest of any language family.
Where are Paleo-Balkan languages spoken?
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.
Which language family is linked to Indo-European?
Proposals linking the Indo-European languages with a single language family include: Indo-Uralic, joining Indo-European with Uralic. Pontic, postulated by John Colarusso, which joins Indo-European with Northwest Caucasian.
Who was the Ottoman traveler who visited Vienna in 1665?
Ottoman Turkish traveler 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" ( Khoekhoe ), and others, noting that related languages (including Latin, Greek, German and Russian) must have separated in antiquity from common ancestors.
What is Indo-European language?
The relationships between the various Indo-European peoples can perhaps be best understood at a glance by considering the following family tree of the Indo-European language families. (“Indo-European” at the top refers to the Proto-Indo-European language, from which all of the others are descended. Old Norse, the language ...
Where did the Indo-European civilization originate?
While many of the details of when and where they first erupted into history are controversial, linguistic and archaeological evidence points most convincingly to an origin in the Bronze Age – specifically, around five thousand years ago – in the steppes north ...
What language did the Vikings speak?
Old Norse, the language of the Vikings, is – somewhat arbitrarily – split into East Norse and West Norse here. And as you can see, English – the language which you’re reading right now – is a West Germanic language that can also be traced back to Proto-Indo-European.)
What were the Proto-Indo-Europeans?
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were pastoralists whose economy centered around raising a few species of livestock. As such, they were semi-nomadic, journeying long distances to find new pastures in which their animals could graze. Like most, if not all, pastoralist peoples throughout history, they were patriarchal and fiercely warlike; those new pastures they’d have to find every so often were usually occupied by others, and the newcomers would have to conquer, kill, or drive off the land’s earlier inhabitants in order to use their fields.
What were the three functions of the Proto-Indo-European society?
Speaking of the divine hierarchy, Proto-Indo-European society was divided into three distinct classes or “functions”: the first function, that of the priests and rulers; the second function, that of the warriors; and the third function, that of the farmers, herders, craftsmen, etc – the “common people.”. [3] While this threefold division of society ...
Did the Indo-European people conquer all of Europe?
Thus equipped, the Proto-Indo-Europeans spread out over much of Eurasia in the following centuries. Wherever they went – virtually all of Europe, the Indian subcontinent, and many of the lands in between – they conquered and assimilated the local populations. While the customs, languages, and worldviews of the pre-Indo-European populations certainly exerted an influence on the hybrid societies that formed after this conquest, the basic template of these societies was solidly Indo-European.
Overview
Classification
The various subgroups of the Indo-European language family include ten major branches, listed below in alphabetical order:
• Albanian, attested from the 13th century AD; Proto-Albanian evolved from an ancient Paleo-Balkan language, traditionally thought to be Illyrian, or otherwise a totally unattested Balkan Indo-European language that was closely related to Ill…
History of Indo-European linguistics
During the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian subcontinent began to notice similarities among Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and European languages. In 1583, English Jesuit missionary and Konkani scholar Thomas Stephens wrote a letter from Goa to his brother (not published until the 20th century) in which he noted similarities between Indian languages and Greek and Latin.
Proposed external relations
From the very beginning of Indo-European studies, there have been attempts to link the Indo-European languages genealogically to other languages and language families. However, these theories remain highly controversial, and most specialists in Indo-European linguistics are sceptical or agnostic about such proposals.
Proposals linking the Indo-European languages with a single language family include:
Evolution
The proposed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the reconstructed 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.
Present distribution
Today, Indo-European languages are spoken by billions of native speakers across all inhabited continents, the largest number by far for any recognised language family. Of the 20 languages with the largest numbers of speakers according to Ethnologue, 10 are Indo-European: English, Hindustani, Spanish, Bengali, French, Russian, Portuguese, German, Persian and Punjabi, each with 100 million speake…
See also
• Grammatical conjugation
• The Horse, the Wheel, and Language (book)
• Indo-European copula
• Indo-European sound laws
Further reading
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2011). Comparative Indo-European linguistics : An Introduction. Revised and corrected by Michiel de Vaan (2nd ed.). Amsterdam ; Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ISBN 9789027211859.
• Bjørn, Rasmus G. (2022). "Indo-European Loanwords and Exchange in Bronze Age Central and East Asia". Evolutionary Human Sciences: 1–41. doi:10.1017/ehs.2022.16.