The Proto-Indo-European

Language

REPORTER: BEJOY A. AÑERO

 DEFINITION OF
TERMS
• Proto-language
• Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
• Proto-Indo-European Language
 PROTO-LANGUAGE

an ancient parent language from

which a group of related languages
have descended through slow
modification
 PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN
(PIE)
is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European
language family, which includes a wide range of languages
spoken in Europe, Asia, and parts of the Middle East. It is not a
language that has been directly attested but is reconstructed by
linguists based on the comparative method and the study of
linguistic features shared by various Indo-European languages.
 PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN
LANGUAGE
- sometimes called as the Parent Language

- is believed to have been spoken thousands of years ago, possibly

around 4500 to 2500 BCE, although dating its exact origins is
challenging. It's the root from which languages like English, Spanish,
Hindi, Russian, and many others evolved.
 ORIGIN OF THE
PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN
LANGUAGE
ORIGIN:
Scholars have put forward multiple hypotheses about when, where, and
by whom PIE was spoken. The Kurgan hypothesis was first put forward by
Maria Gimbutas in 1956 and has become the most popular hypothesis. We
propose that the first speakers of PIE were the Yamnaya culture associated
with the Kurgans (burial mounds) of the Pontic-Caspian steppes north of the
Black Sea. Theory suggests that they were nomads who domesticated horses,
which enabled them to travel across Europe and Asia in horse-drawn carriages
and chariots.
ORIGIN:
By the early 3rd millennium BC, they had spread throughout
the Pontic-Caspian steppe and into Eastern Europe. Other theories
include the Anatolian Hypothesis, which posits that PIE spread
from Anatolia with the beginning of agriculture in BC. 7500-6000
BC, Armenian Hypothesis, Paleolithic Continuity Paradigm, Aryan
Indigenous Theory. The latter two of these theories are not
considered credible in academia.
ORIGIN:
Of all the theories about the homeland of PIE, the Kurgan and
Anatolian hypotheses are the most widely accepted and also the
most mutually debated hypotheses. After several studies of ancient
DNA were published in 2015,, Colin Renfrew original author and
proponent of the Anatolian hypothesis, suggested that one or more
Indo-European-speaking populations originated from the Pontic
steppe to northwestern Europe.
LANGUAGE OF THE FAMILY
LANGUAGES OF THE FAMILY

The well-attested languages of the Indo-

European family fall fairly neatly into the 10
main branches; these are arranged according
to the age of their oldest sizable texts.
10 MAIN BRANCHES
1. Anatolian 6. Armenian
2. Indo-Iranian 7. Tocharian
3. Greek 8. Celtic
4. Italic 9. Balto-Slavic
5. Germanic 10. Albanian
ANATOLIAN
Now extinct, Anatolian languages were spoken during
the 1st and 2nd millennia BCE in what is presently Asian
Turkey and Northern Syria. By far the best-known Anatolian
language is Hittite, the official language of the Hittite empire,
which flourished in the 2nd millennium.
ANATOLIAN
Very few Hittite texts were known before 1906, and their
interpretation as Indo-European was not generally accepted until
after 1915; the integration of Hittite data into Indo-European
comparative grammar was, therefore, one of the principal
developments of Indo-European studies in the 20th century. The
oldest Hittite texts date from the 17th century BCE, the latest
from approximately 1200 BCE.
INDO-IRANIAN
Indo-Iranian comprises two main subbranches, Indo-Aryan
(Indic) and Iranian. Indo-Aryan languages have been spoken in what
is now northern and central India and Pakistan since before 1000
BCE. Aside from a very poorly known dialect spoken in or near
northern Iraq during the 2nd millennium BCE, the oldest record of an
Indo-Aryan language is the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda, the oldest
of the sacred scriptures of India, dating roughly from 1000 BCE.
INDO-IRANIAN
Examples of modern Indo-Aryan languages are Hindi,
Bengali, Sinhalese (spoken in Sri Lanka), and the many dialects
of Romany, the language of the Roma. Iranian languages were
spoken in the 1st millennium BCE in present-day Iran and
Afghanistan and also in the steppes to the north, from modern
Hungary to East (Chinese) Turkistan (now Xinjiang).
INDO-IRANIAN
The only well-known ancient varieties of Iranian
languages are Avestan, the sacred language of the
Zoroastrians (Parsis), and Old Persian, the official language of
Darius I (ruled 522–486 BCE) and Xerxes I (486–465 BCE)
and their successors. Among the modern Iranian languages are
Persian (Fārsī), Pashto (Afghan), Kurdish, and Ossetic.
GREEK
Despite its numerous dialects, has been a single language throughout its history. It

has been spoken in Greece since at least 1600 BCE and, in all probability, since the

end of the 3rd millennium BCE. The earliest texts are the Linear B tablets, some

of which may date from as far back as 1400 BCE (the date is disputed) and some of

which certainly date to 1200 BCE. This material, very sparse and difficult to

interpret, was not identified as Greek until 1952. The Homeric epics—the Iliad and

the Odyssey, probably dating from the 8th century BCE—are the oldest texts of any

bulk.
LINEAR B TABLET
GREEK
Despite its numerous dialects, has been a single language throughout its history. It

has been spoken in Greece since at least 1600 BCE and, in all probability, since the

end of the 3rd millennium BCE. The earliest texts are the Linear B tablets, some

of which may date from as far back as 1400 BCE (the date is disputed) and some of

which certainly date to 1200 BCE. This material, very sparse and difficult to

interpret, was not identified as Greek until 1952. The Homeric epics—the Iliad and

the Odyssey, probably dating from the 8th century BCE—are the oldest texts of any

bulk.
ITALIC
The principal language of the Italic group is Latin, originally the
speech of the city of Rome and the ancestor of the modern Romance
languages: Italian, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and so on.
The earliest Latin inscriptions apparently date from the 6th century
BCE, with literature beginning in the 3rd century. Scholars are not in
agreement as to how many other ancient languages of Italy and Sicily
belong in the same branch as Latin.
GERMANIC
In the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, Germanic tribes lived in
southern Scandinavia and northern Germany. Their expansions and
migrations from the 2nd century BCE onward are largely recorded in
history. The oldest Germanic language of which much is known is the
Gothic of the 4th century CE. Other languages include English,
German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.
ARMENIAN

like Greek, is a single language. Speakers of

Armenian are recorded as being in what now
constitutes eastern Turkey and Armenia as early as
the 6th century BCE, but the oldest Armenian
texts date from the 5th century CE.
TOCHARIAN
The Tocharian languages, now extinct, were spoken in the
Tarim Basin (in present-day northwestern China) during the 1st
millennium CE. Two distinct languages are known, labeled A (East
Tocharian, or Turfanian) and B (West Tocharian, or Kuchean). One
group of travel permits for caravans can be dated to the early 7th
century, and it appears that other texts date from the same or from
neighboring centuries.
 25

CLASSICAL
LITERATURE
TOCHARIAN
The Tocharian languages, now extinct, were spoken in the
Tarim Basin (in present-day northwestern China) during the 1st
millennium CE. Two distinct languages are known, labeled A (East
Tocharian, or Turfanian) and B (West Tocharian, or Kuchean). One
group of travel permits for caravans can be dated to the early 7th
century, and it appears that other texts date from the same or from
neighboring centuries.
TOCHARIAN
These languages became known to scholars only in the first
decade of the 20th century. They have been less important for Indo-
European studies than Hittite has been, partly because their testimony
about the Indo-European parent language is obscured by 2,000 more
years of change and partly because Tocharian testimony fits fairly
well with that of the previously known non-Anatolian languages.
CELTIC
Celtic languages were spoken in the last centuries before the Common Era

(also called the Christian Era) over a wide area of Europe, from Spain and

Britain to the Balkans, with one group (the Galatians) even in Asia Minor. Very

little of the Celtic of that time and the ensuing centuries has survived, and this

branch is known almost entirely from the Insular Celtic languages—Irish,

Welsh, and others—spoken in and near the British Isles, as recorded from the

8th century CE onward.

BALTO-SLAVIC
The grouping of Baltic and Slavic into a single branch is
somewhat controversial, but the exclusively shared features
outweigh the divergences. At the beginning of the Common Era,
Baltic and Slavic tribes occupied a large area of eastern Europe,
east of the Germanic tribes and north of the Iranians, including
much of present-day Poland and the states of Belarus, Ukraine,
and westernmost Russia.
BALTO-SLAVIC
The Slavic area was in all likelihood relatively small, perhaps
centred in what is now Southern Poland. But in the 5th century
CE the Slavs began expanding in all directions. By the end of the
20th century Slavic languages were spoken throughout much of
eastern Europe and northern Asia. The Baltic-speaking area,
however, contracted, and by the end of the 20th century Baltic
languages were confined to Lithuania and Latvia.
BALTO-SLAVIC
The earliest Slavic texts, written in a dialect called Old
Church Slavonic, date from the 9th century CE, the oldest
substantial material in Baltic dates to the end of the 14th
century, and the oldest connected texts to the 16th century.
ALBANIAN

Albanian, the language of the present-day republic of

Albania, is known from the 15th century CE. It

presumably continues one of the very poorly attested

ancient Indo-European languages of the Balkan

Peninsula, but which one is not clear.

SHARED CHARACTERISTICS
SHARED CHRACTERISTICS
The chief reason for grouping the Indo-European
languages together is that they share a number of items of
basic vocabulary, including grammatical affixes, whose shapes
in the different languages can be related to one another by
statable phonetic rules. Especially important are the shared
patterns of alternation of sounds.
SHARED CHRACTERISTICS
Thus, the agreement of Sanskrit ás-ti, Latin es-t, and Gothic is-
t, all meaning ‘is,’ is greatly strengthened by the identical reduction
of the root to s- in the plural in all three languages: Sanskrit s-ánti,
Latin s-unt, Gothic s-ind ‘they are.’ Agreements in pure structure,
totally divorced from phonetic substance, are, at best, of dubious
value in proving membership in the Indo-European family.
Proto-Germanic Language
REPORTER: BEJOY A. AÑERO
Proto-Germanic

(abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-

language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic
eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branches during the
fifth century BC to fifth century AD: West Germanic, East Germanic and North
Germanic, which however remained in contact over a considerable time, especially the
Ingvaeonic languages (including English), which arose from West Germanic dialects and
remained in continued contact with North Germanic.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF GERMANIC TO THE OTHER
INDO-EUROPEAN LANGAUGE
The Relationship of Germanic to the
Other Indo-European Languages
The relationship of the Germanic language group to
other language groups can only be determined by evidence
in the languages. The closest language groups to Germanic
are the Balto-Slavic, the Italic, and the Celtic.
The Relationship of Germanic to the
Other Indo-European Languages
Yet, unlike Indo-Iranian, Greek, and Armenian, which
have the augment as a common innovation as well as
extensive verbal inflection, these four western groups lack
any common phonological or morphological innovations.
The Relationship of Germanic to the
Other Indo-European Languages
They share common vocabulary items, more for instance between
Germanic and Italic than between Germanic and Celtic. Some of these may
be attributed to a relatively late date, such as the name of a grain, either
wheat or spelt, Lat. far, ON bǫrr, and the name of the goat, Lat. haedus, Go.
gaits, as well as that of the male goat, Lat. caper, ON hafr.
The Relationship of Germanic to the
Other Indo-European Languages
Similarly, the Germanic words in common with Celtic
indicate contacts between the two groups, but not major
innovations; among them is a word for wagon, OIr. fēn, ON
vagn, and a word for traveling, Irish rīadaim, OE rīdan.
The Relationship of Germanic to the
Other Indo-European Languages
Among vocabulary items common to Germanic and Baltic are the
words for eleven and twelve, which are innovations of the pattern "one/two
left over" — Go. ainlif, Lith. vienúolika 'eleven' & Go. twalif, Lith. dvýlika
'twelve' — and words for movement, OE gengan, Lith. źengiù 'go, stride'.
Other examples are given by Porzig (1954:106-147), some of which will be
examined in the last section of this grammar.
The Relationship of Germanic to the
Other Indo-European Languages

In view of the absence of common innovations

shared among other dialects, such as the augment, I
assume that Germanic broke off independently —
early — from Proto-Indo-European.
To be
continued…