Indo-European languages

This article is about the family of languages found in much of Europe and Asia. For other uses, see Indo-European (disambiguation).
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:
ISO 639-2 / 5: ine
Glottolog: indo1319[1]

{{{mapalt}}}

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

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 of the modern 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

Main article: Indo-European studies

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", aṣṭa/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.

Franz Bopp, pioneer in the field of comparative linguistic studies.

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. 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

Classification of Indo-European languages. Red: Extinct languages. White: categories or unattested proto-languages. Left half: centum languages; right half: satem languages
Predominant Indo-European languages in Europe:
  Germanic
  Romanic
  Slavic
  Baltic
  Hellenic (Greek)
  Albanian
  Non-Indo-European

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:[9]

  1. Anatolian (Asia Minor), the earliest attested branch. Emerged around 4200 BC.[9] Isolated terms in Luwian/Hittite mentioned in Semitic Old Assyrian texts from the 20th and 19th centuries BC, Hittite texts from about 1650 BC;[10][11] extinct by Late Antiquity.
  2. Tocharian, emerged around 3700 BC,[9] 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,[9] 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,[9] attested from the 7th century BC.
  5. Celtic, descended from Proto-Celtic, emerged around 3000 BC.[9] 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.[9] Alphabet writings known from the beginning of the 5th century AD.
  7. Balto-Slavic, emerged around 2800 BC,[9] believed by most Indo-Europeanists[12] to form a phylogenetic unit, while a minority ascribes similarities to prolonged language contact.
  8. Hellenic, emerged around 2500 BC.[9] Fragmentary records in Mycenaean Greek from between 1450 and 1350 BC have been found.[13] Homeric texts date to the 8th century BC. (See Proto-Greek, History of Greek.)
  9. Indo-Iranian, emerged around 2200 BC,[9] attested circa 1400 BC, descended from Proto-Indo-Iranian (dated to the late 3rd millennium BC).
  10. Albanian, attested from the 14th century AD; Proto-Albanian language likely evolved from Paleo-Balkan predecessors.[16][17]

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

Grouping

Further information: Language families

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

See also: Language change

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.[22] Most approaches to Indo-European subgrouping to date have assumed that the tree model is by and large valid for Indo-European;[23] however, there is also a long tradition of wave-model approaches.[24][25][26]

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.[27]

Proposed subgroupings

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.[28]

The Italo-Celtic subgroup was at one point uncontroversial, considered by Antoine Meillet to be even better established than Balto-Slavic.[29] 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-.[30] This evidence was prominently challenged by Calvert Watkins;[31] but other, stronger evidence has since emerged.[32]

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".[33] Greek and Indo-Iranian share innovations mainly in verbal morphology and patterns of nominal derivation.[34] Relations have also been proposed between Phrygian and Greek,[35] and between Thracian and Armenian.[36][37] 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[38] and Tocharian. Shared features with Balto-Slavic languages, on the other hand (especially present and preterit formations), might be due to later contacts.[39] 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[40] and the preservation of laryngeals.[41] 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.[42] Hans J. Holm, based on lexical calculations, arrives at a picture roughly replicating the general scholarly opinion and refuting the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.[43]

Satem and centum languages

Some significant isoglosses in Indo-European daughter languages at around 500 BC.
  Blue: centum languages
  Red: satem languages
  Orange: languages with augment
  Green: languages with PIE *-tt- > -ss-
  Tan: languages with PIE *-tt- > -st-
  Pink: languages with instrumental, dative and ablative plural endings (and some others) in *-m- rather than *-bh-

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.[44] Kortlandt proposes that the ancestors of Balts and Slavs took part in satemization before being drawn later into the western Indo-European sphere.[45]

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 the smaller proposed macrofamilies are:

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

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

Scheme of Indo-European migrations from ca. 4000 to 1000 BC according to the Kurgan hypothesis.

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

Indo-European languages ca. 3500 BC
Indo-European languages ca. 2500 BC
Indo-European languages ca. 1500 BC
Indo-European languages ca. 500 BC
Indo-European languages ca. 500 AD

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:[46]

David Anthony proposes the following sequence:[9]

From 1500 BC the following sequence may be given:

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:

Other primary sources:

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

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

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:

  1. As in other centum languages, the "plain velar" and "palatal" stops merged, reducing the number of stops from 15 to 12.
  2. As in the other Germanic languages, the Germanic sound shift changed the realization of all stop consonants, with each consonant shifting to a different one:
    bʰ → b → p → f
    dʰ → d → t → θ
    gʰ → g → k → x (Later initial x →h)
    gʷʰ → gʷ → kʷ → xʷ (Later initial xʷ →hʷ)

    Each original consonant shifted one position to the right. For example, original dʰ became d, while original d became t and original t became θ (written th in English). This is the original source of the English sounds written f, th, h and wh. Examples, comparing English with Latin, where the sounds largely remain unshifted:

    For PIE p: piscis vs. fish; pēs, pēdis vs. foot; pluvium "rain" vs. flow; pater vs. father
    For PIE t: trēs vs. three; māter vs. mother
    For PIE d: decem vs. ten; pēdis vs. foot; quid vs. what
    For PIE k: centum vs. hund(red); capere "to take" vs. have
    For PIE kʷ: quid vs. what; quandō vs. when
  3. Various further changes affected consonants in the middle or end of a word:
    • The voiced stops resulting from the sound shift were softened to voiced fricatives (or perhaps the sound shift directly generated fricatives in these positions).
    • Verner's law also turned some of the voiceless fricatives resulting from the sound shift into voiced fricatives or stops. This is why the t in Latin centum ends up as d in hund(red) rather than the expected th.
    • Most remaining h sounds disappeared, while remaining f and th became voiced. For example, Latin decem ends up as ten with no h in the middle (but note taíhun "ten" in Gothic, an archaic Germanic language). Similarly, the words seven and have have a voiced v (compare Latin septem, capere), while father and mother have a voiced th, although not spelled differently (compare Latin pater, māter).

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 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:

Among the other notable changes affecting consonants are:

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 kas, kad
*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:

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) beriata
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.

Comparison of cognates

Present distribution of Indo-European languages

Countries where an Indo-European language is:
  a primary de facto national or official language
  a secondary official language
  officially recognized
The approximate present-day distribution of Indo-European languages within the Americas by country:
Romance:
  French
Germanic:
  Dutch

Today, Indo-European languages are spoken by almost 3 billion native speakers across all inhabited continents,[50] 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.[51]

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

See also

References

  1. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Indo-European". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  2. ↑ "Ethnologue report for Indo-European". Ethnologue.com.
  3. 1 2 3 Auroux, Sylvain (2000). History of the Language Sciences. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. p. 1156. ISBN 3-11-016735-2.
  4. ↑ M. V. Lomonosov (drafts for Russian Grammar, published 1755). In: Complete Edition, Moscow, 1952, vol. 7, pp. 652–659: Представимъ долготу времени, которою сіи языки раздѣлились. ... Польской и россійской языкъ коль давно раздѣлились! Подумай же, когда курляндской! Подумай же, когда латинской, греч., нѣм., росс. О глубокая древность! [Imagine the depth of time when these languages separated! ... Polish and Russian separated so long ago! Now think how long ago [this happened to] Kurlandic! Think when [this happened to] Latin, Greek, German, and Russian! Oh, great antiquity!]
  5. ↑ "Indo-European Practice and Historical Methodology (cited on pp. 14-15)." (PDF). Retrieved 2010-08-07.
  6. ↑ Roger Blench Archaeology and Language: methods and issues at the Wayback Machine (archived May 17, 2006). In: A Companion To Archaeology. J. Bintliff ed. 52-74. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2004. (He erroneously included Egyptian, Japanese, and Chinese in the Indo-European languages, while omitting Hindi.)
  7. ↑ Robinson, Andrew (2007). The Last Man Who Knew Everything: Thomas Young, the Anonymous Genius who Proved Newton Wrong and Deciphered the Rosetta Stone, among Other Surprising Feats. Penguin. ISBN 0-13-134304-1.
  8. ↑ In London Quarterly Review X/2 1813.; cf. Szemerényi 1999:12, footnote 6
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Anthony 2007, p. 100.
  10. ↑ http://www.leidenuniv.nl/en/researcharchive/index.php3-c=178.htm
  11. ↑ http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/ar/61-70/65-66/65-66_CHD.pdf
  12. ↑ such as Schleicher 1861, Szemerényi 1957, Collinge 1985, and Beekes 1995
  13. ↑ "Tablet Discovery Pushes Earliest European Writing Back 150 Years".
  14. ↑ "Indian History". ISBN 9788184245684.
  15. ↑ http://www.ancient.eu.com/Mitanni/
  16. ↑ Of the Albanian Language. William Martin Leake, London, 1814.
  17. ↑ "The Thracian language". The Linguist List. Retrieved 2008-01-27. An ancient language of Southern Balkans, belonging to the Satem group of Indo-European. This language is the most likely ancestor of modern Albanian (which is also a Satem language), though the evidence is scanty. 1st Millennium BC – 500 AD.
  18. ↑ Michel Lejeune (1974), Manuel de la langue vénète. Heidelberg: Indogermanische Bibliothek, Lehr- und Handbücher.
  19. ↑ Julius Pokorny (1959), Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. Publisher Bern.
  20. ↑ Kruta, Venceslas (1991). The Celts. Thames and Hudson. p. 54.
  21. ↑ Fine, John (1985). The ancient Greeks: a critical history. Harvard University Press. p. 72. ISBN 0674033140. "Most scholars now believe that the Sicans and Sicels, as well as the inhabitants of southern Italy, were basically of Illyrian stock superimposed on an aboriginal "Mediterranean" population."
  22. ↑ François, Alexandre (2014), "Trees, Waves and Linkages: Models of Language Diversification" (PDF), in Bowern, Claire; Evans, Bethwyn, The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics, London: Routledge, pp. 161–189, ISBN 978-0-41552-789-7.
  23. ↑ Blažek, Václav (2007). "From August Schleicher to Sergei Starostin: on the development of the tree-diagram models of the Indo-European languages". Journal of Indo-European Studies 35 (1–2): 82–109.
  24. ↑ Meillet, Antoine (1908). Les dialectes indo-européens. Paris: Honoré Champion.
  25. ↑ Bonfante, Giuliano (1931). I dialetti indoeuropei. Brescia: Paideia.
  26. ↑ Porzig, Walter (1954). Die Gliederung des indogermanischen Sprachgebiets. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag.
  27. ↑ Nakhleh, Luay; Ringe, Don & Warnow, Tandy (2005). "Perfect Phylogenetic Networks: A New Methodology for Reconstructing the Evolutionary History of Natural Languages" (PDF). Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America 81 (2): 382–420. doi:10.1353/lan.2005.0078.
  28. ↑ Mallory, J.P., Adams, D.Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Fitzroy Dearborn.
  29. ↑ Porzig 1954, p. 39.
  30. ↑ Fortson 2004, p. 247.
  31. ↑ Watkins, Calvert (1966). "Italo-Celtic revisited". In Birnbaum, Henrik; Puhvel, Jaan. Ancient Indo-European dialects. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 29–50.
  32. ↑ Weiss, Michael (2012). "Italo-Celtica: linguistic and cultural points of contact between Italic and Celtic". In Jamison, Stephanie W.; Melchert, H. Craig; Vine, Brent. Proceedings of the 23rd annual UCLA Indo-European conference. Bremen: Hempen. pp. 151–173.
  33. ↑ Greppin, James (1996). "Review of The linguistic relationship between Armenian and Greek by James Clackson". Language 72 (4): 804–807. doi:10.2307/416105.
  34. ↑ Euler, Wolfram (1979). Indoiranisch-griechische Gemeinsamkeiten der Nominalbildung und deren indogermanische Grundlagen. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.
  35. ↑ Lubotsky - The Old Phrygian Areyastis-inscription, Kadmos 27, 9-26, 1988
  36. ↑ Kortlandt - The Thraco-Armenian consonant shift, Linguistique Balkanique 31, 71-74, 1988
  37. ↑ Renfrew, Colin (1987). Archaeology & Language. The Puzzle of the Indo-European Origins. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-02495-7.
  38. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica, vol.22, Helen Hemingway Benton Publisher, Chicago, (15th ed.) 1981, p.593
  39. ↑ George S. Lane, Douglas Q. Adams, Britannica 15th edition 22:667, "The Tocharian problem"
  40. ↑ The supposed autochthony of Hittites, the Indo-Hittite hypothesis and migration of agricultural "Indo-European" societies became intrinsically linked together by C. Renfrew. (Renfrew, C 2001a The Anatolian origins of Proto-Indo-European and the autochthony of the Hittites. In R. Drews ed., Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite language. family: 36-63. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man).
  41. ↑ Britannica 15th edition, 22 p. 586 "Indo-European languages, The parent language, Laryngeal theory" - W.C.; p. 589, 593 "Anatolian languages" - Philo H.J. Houwink ten Cate, H. Craig Melchert and Theo P.J. van den Hout
  42. ↑ Britannica 15th edition, 22 p.594, "Indo-Hittite hypothesis"
  43. ↑ Holm, Hans J. (2008). "The Distribution of Data in Word Lists and its Impact on the Subgrouping of Languages". In Preisach, Christine; Burkhardt, Hans; Schmidt-Thieme, Lars; et al. Data Analysis, Machine Learning, and Applications. Proc. of the 31st Annual Conference of the German Classification Society (GfKl), University of Freiburg, March 7–9, 2007. Studies in Classification, Data Analysis, and Knowledge Organization. Heidelberg-Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-78239-1. The result is a partly new chain of separation for the main Indo-European branches, which fits well to the grammatical facts, as well as to the geographical distribution of these branches. In particular it clearly demonstrates that the Anatolian languages did not part as first ones and thereby refutes the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.
  44. ↑ Britannica 15th edition, vol.22, 1981, p.588, 594
  45. ↑ "Frederik Kortlandt-The spread of the Indo-Europeans, 1989" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-08-07.
  46. 1 2 Anthony 2007, p. 56-58.
  47. ↑ Ringe 2006, p. 67.
  48. ↑ "Indo-European Languages: Balto-Slavic Family". Utexas.edu. 2008-11-10. Retrieved 2010-08-07.
  49. ↑ Ancient Tablet Found: Oldest Readable Writing in Europe
  50. ↑ "Ethnologue list of language families". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 2010-08-07.
  51. ↑ "Ethnologue list of languages by number of speakers". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 2010-08-07.

Sources

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  • Holm, Hans J. (2008). "The Distribution of Data in Word Lists and its Impact on the Subgrouping of Languages". In Preisach, Christine; Burkhardt, Hans; Schmidt-Thieme, Lars; et al. Data Analysis, Machine Learning, and Applications. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the German Classification Society (GfKl), University of Freiburg, March 7–9, 2007. Heidelberg-Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-78239-1. 
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  • Kortlandt, Frederik (1988). "The Thraco-Armenian consonant shift". Linguistique Balkanique 31: 71–74. 
  • Lane, George S.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1981). "The Tocharian problem". Encyclopædia Britannica 22 (15th ed.). Chicago: Helen Hemingway Benton. 
  • Renfrew, C. (2001). "The Anatolian origins of Proto-Indo-European and the autochthony of the Hittites". In Drews, R. Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite language family. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man. ISBN 0-941694-77-1. 
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Further reading

External links

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