Indo-European Languages — Centum and Satem Branch
- Oct 19, 2013
- 1 min read
The quest for the origins of the Indo-Europeans has all the fascination of an electric light in the open air on a summer night: it attracts every species of scholar or would-be savant who can take pen to hand. For over 200 years, theories have been put forward advocating ages ranging from 4000 to 23,000 years, with hypothesized homelands including Central Europe, the Balkans, and even India. Unfortunately, archaeological, genetic and linguistic research on Indo-European origins has so far proved inconclusive.
In early historical times, Indo-European languages were present in central and northern Europe, southeastern Europe, and much of southern and southwest Asia. Scholars have long theorized about what pre-historic events might have caused this group to become so widespread.
In the late 1700s, William Jones an English judge serving in India, discovered something startling; that Sanskrit possesses striking similarities to Greek, Latin, and Celtic. He theorized that they all sprang from a common source, an even more ancient language that had since become extinct.
Since Jones’ time, linguists have verified and greatly expanded on his discovery. Languages that fall into this Indo-European classification include Romance languages, Germanic languages, including of course English, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian and Celtic, plus extinct languages such as Tocharian, spoken in parts of China, and Hittite, spoken in Asia Minor. It’s a huge and incredibly diverse group that derives from the speech of one ancient and forgotten people. The questions remain of who they were, when they lived, and where they came from.
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