Indo-European languages

Indo-European
Geographic distribution	Worldwide
Native speakers	est. 3.4 billion
Proto-Indo-European
Subdivisions	Messapic † Anatolian † Armenian Balto-Slavic   • Baltic   • Slavic Celtic Germanic Graeco-Phrygian?   • Hellenic   • Phrygian † Indo-Iranian   • Indo-Aryan   • Iranian   • Nuristani Sabellic † Tocharian † Unclassified or poorly attested:   • Dacian †   • Dardanian †   • Elymian †   • Liburnian †   • Ligurian †   • Lusitanian †   • Paeonian †   • Philistine? †   • Thracian †
Language codes
ISO 639-2 / 5	ine
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	indo1319
Present-day distribution of Indo-European languages in Eurasia:   Albanoid (Albanian)   Armenian   Baltic (East)    Goidelic )   Germanic (North and West)   Hellenic (Greek)   Iranian   Indo-Aryan   Nuristani   Italic (Romance)   Non-Indo-European languages Dotted/striped areas indicate where multilingualism is common (more visible upon full enlargement of the map).
Notes	† indicates this branch of the language family is extinct

Part of a series on
Indo-European topics
Languages List of Indo-European languages Extant Albanoid Albanian Armenian Balto-Slavic Baltic Slavic Celtic Germanic Hellenic Greek Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Nuristani Italic Romance Extinct Anatolian Tocharian Paleo-Balkan Dacian Illyrian Liburnian Messapic Mysian Paeonian Phrygian Thracian Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language Phonology: Sound laws, Accent, Ablaut Hypothetical Balkanic Daco-Thracian Graeco-Albanian Graeco-Armenian Graeco-Aryan Graeco-Phrygian Indo-Hittite Italo-Celtic Thraco-Illyrian Grammar Vocabulary Root Verbs Nouns Pronouns Numerals Particles Other Proto-Albanian Proto-Anatolian Proto-Armenian Proto-Germanic (Proto-Norse) Proto-Italo-Celtic (Proto-Celtic · Proto-Italic ) Proto-Greek Proto-Balto-Slavic (Proto-Slavic · Proto-Baltic) Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Indo-Aryan, Proto-Iranian, Proto-Nuristani)
Philology Hittite inscriptions Hieroglyphic Luwian Linear B Rigveda Avesta Homer Behistun Greek epigraphy Phrygian epigraphy Messapic epigraphy Latin epigraphy Gaulish epigraphy Runic epigraphy Ogham Gothic Bible Bible translations into Armenian Tocharian script Old Irish glosses Albanian Kanun
Origins Homeland Proto-Indo-Europeans Society Religion Mainstream Kurgan hypothesis Indo-European migrations Eurasian nomads Alternative and fringe Anatolian hypothesis Armenian hypothesis Beech argument Indigenous Aryanism Baltic homeland Paleolithic continuity theory
Archaeology Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Pontic Steppe Domestication of the horse Kurgan Kurgan stelae Kurgan culture Steppe cultures Bug–Dniester Sredny Stog Dnieper–Donets Samara Khvalynsk Yamnaya Mykhailivka culture Novotitarovskaya culture Caucasus Maykop East Asia Afanasievo Eastern Europe Usatove Cernavodă Cucuteni Northern Europe Corded ware Baden Middle Dnieper Bronze Age Pontic Steppe Chariot Yamnaya Catacomb Multi-cordoned ware Poltavka Srubnaya Northern/Eastern Steppe Abashevo culture Andronovo Sintashta Europe Globular Amphora Corded ware Bell Beaker Únětice Trzciniec Nordic Bronze Age Terramare Tumulus Urnfield Proto-Villanovan Lusatian Este South Asia Bishkent Vakhsh BMAC Ochre Coloured Pottery Copper Hoard Cemetery H Gandhara grave Iron Age Steppe Chernoles Europe Thraco-Cimmerian Hallstatt Latial Jastorf Caucasus Colchian Central Asia Yaz India Painted Grey Ware Northern Black Polished Ware
Peoples and societies Bronze Age Anatolian peoples (Hittites) Armenians Mycenaean Greeks Indo-Iranians Iron Age Indo-Aryans Indo-Aryans Iranians Iranians Nuristanis Nuristanis East Asia Wusun Yuezhi Europe Celts Gauls Celtiberians Insular Celts Cimmerians Hellenic peoples Italic peoples Germanic peoples Anatolia Thracians Dacians Illyrians Paeonians Phrygians Scythians Middle Ages East Asia Tocharians Europe Albanians Balts Slavs Norsemen/Medieval Scandinavians Middle Ages Indo-Aryan Medieval India Iranian Greater Iran
Religion and mythology Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology Proto-Indo-Iranian religion Historical Vedic religion Ancient Iranian religion Historical Hittite Indo-Aryan Vedic Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism Iranian Persian Zoroastrianism Kurdish Yazidism Yarsanism Scythian Ossetian Others Armenian European Dacian ) Greek Roman Celtic Irish Scottish Breton Welsh Cornish Germanic Anglo-Saxon Continental Norse Baltic Latvian Lithuanian Slavic Practices Fire rituals Horse sacrifice Sati Winter solstice/Yule
Indo-European studies Scholars Marija Gimbutas J. P. Mallory Institutes Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European Publications Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture The Horse, the Wheel, and Language Journal of Indo-European Studies Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch Indo-European Etymological Dictionary
Category
v t e

The Indo-European languages are a

.

Today, the individual Indo-European languages with the most native speakers are English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Hindustani, Bengali, French, and German; many others spoken by smaller groups are in danger of extinction. Over 3.4 billion people (42% of the global population) speak an Indo-European language as a first language—by far the most of any language family. There are about 446 living Indo-European languages, according to an estimate by Ethnologue, of which 313 belong to the Indo-Iranian branch.^[1]

All Indo-European languages are descended from a single prehistoric language,

. The analysis of the family relationships between the Indo-European languages, and the reconstruction of their common source, was central to the development of the methodology of historical linguistics as an academic discipline in the 19th century.

The Indo-European language family is not considered by the current academic consensus in the field of linguistics to have any

propose such relations.

History of Indo-European linguistics

During the 16th century, European visitors to the

.

Another account was made by 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').^[4] However, neither Stephens' nor Sassetti's observations led to further scholarly inquiry.^[4]

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 that he called Scythian.^[5] 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" (Khoekhoe), and others, noting that related languages (including Latin, Greek, German, and Russian) must have separated in antiquity from common ancestors.^[6]

The hypothesis reappeared in 1786 when

in 1786, conjecturing the existence of an earlier ancestor language, which he called "a common source" but did not name:

The Sanscrit [sic] language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.^{[note 1]}

— Sir William Jones, Third Anniversary Discourse delivered 2 February 1786, ELIOHS^[9]

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.^[10][11] 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.

]

Classification

The various subgroups of the Indo-European language family include ten major branches, listed below in alphabetical order:

• Messapic.^[15][16][17]
• Hittite texts from about 1650 BC.^[18][19]
• Armenian, attested from the early 5th century AD. It evolved from the Proto-Armenian language which, according to the Armenian hypothesis, developed in situ from the Proto-Indo-European language of the 3rd millennium BC.^[20][21]
• Balto-Slavic, believed by most Indo-Europeanists^[22]
  to form a phylogenetic unit, while a minority ascribes similarities to prolonged language-contact.
  • Slovenian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn
    .
  • Proto-Indo-European (PIE). Living examples are Lithuanian and Latvian
    .
• Lepontic inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Celtiberian from the 2nd century BC; Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions from the 4th or 5th century AD, earliest inscriptions in Old Welsh from the 7th century AD. Modern Celtic languages include Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Manx
  .
• 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. Includes English, Frisian, German, Dutch, Scots, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Afrikaans, Yiddish, Low German, Icelandic, Elfdalian, and Faroese
  .
• Mycenaean Greek from between 1450 and 1350 BC have been found.^[23] Homeric
  texts date to the 8th century BC.
• Proto-Indo-Iranian
  (dated to the late 3rd millennium BC).
  • via oral tradition dating from c. the mid-2nd millennium BC in the form of Vedic Sanskrit. Includes a wide range of modern languages from North India, Eastern Pakistan and Bangladesh, including Hindustani (Hindi, Urdu), Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Marathi, Sindhi and Nepali, as well as Sinhala of Sri Lanka and Dhivehi of the Maldives and Minicoy
    .
  • Kurdish, Balochi, Luri, and Ossetian
    .
  • Zemiaki
    .
• Proto-Italic), attested from the 7th century BC. Includes the ancient Osco-Umbrian languages, Faliscan, as well as Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages, such as Italian and French
  .
• Afanasevo culture of Southern Siberia.^[26] Extant in two dialects (Turfanian and Kuchean, or Tocharian A and B), attested during roughly the 6th–9th centuries AD. Marginalized by the Old Turkic Uyghur Khaganate
  and probably extinct by the 10th century.

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

• Ancient Belgian: hypothetical language associated with the proposed Nordwestblock cultural area. Speculated to be connected to Italic or Venetic, and to have certain phonological features in common with Lusitanian.^[27][28]
• Cimmerian: possibly Iranic, Thracian, or Celtic
• Dacian: possibly very close to Thracian
• Elymian: Poorly-attested language spoken by the Elymians, one of the three indigenous (i.e. pre-Greek and pre-Punic) tribes of Sicily. Indo-European affiliation widely accepted, possibly related to Italic or Anatolian.^[29][30]
• Illyrian
  : possibly related to Albanian, Messapian, or both
• Liburnian: evidence too scant and uncertain to determine anything with certainty
• Ligurian: possibly close to or part of Celtic.^[31]
• Lusitanian: possibly related to (or part of) Celtic, Ligurian, or Italic
• Ancient Macedonian: proposed relationship to Greek.
• Messapic: not conclusively deciphered, often considered to be related to Albanian as the available fragmentary linguistic evidence shows common characteristic innovations and a number of significant lexical correspondences between the two languages^[32][33][34]
• Paionian
  : extinct language once spoken north of Macedon
• Phrygian: language of the ancient Phrygians. Very likely, but not certainly, a sister group to Hellenic.
• 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.^[35]
• Sorothaptic
  : proposed, pre-Celtic, Iberian language
• Thracian: possibly including Dacian
• Venetic: shares several similarities with Latin and the Italic languages, but also has some affinities with other IE languages, especially Germanic and Celtic.^[36][37]

Membership of languages in the Indo-European language family is determined by

, the source of all the Germanic languages.

In the 21st century, several attempts have been made to model the phylogeny of Indo-European languages using Bayesian methodologies similar to those applied to problems in biological phylogeny.^[39][40][38] Although there are differences in absolute timing between the various analyses, there is much commonality between them, including the result that the first known language groups to diverge were the Anatolian and Tocharian language families, in that order.

The "tree model" is considered an appropriate representation of the genealogical 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.^[41] Most approaches to Indo-European subgrouping to date have assumed that the tree model is by-and-large valid for Indo-European;^[42] however, there is also a long tradition of wave-model approaches.^[43][44][45]

In addition to genealogical changes, many of the early changes in Indo-European languages can be attributed to

even features areal convergence among members of very different branches.

An extension to the Ringe-Warnow model of language evolution suggests that early IE had featured limited contact between distinct lineages, with only the Germanic subfamily exhibiting a less treelike behaviour as it acquired some characteristics from neighbours early in its evolution. The internal diversification of especially West Germanic is cited to have been radically non-treelike.^[46]

Hypothetical Indo-European phylogenetic clades
Balkan
Paleo-Balkan Graeco-Albanian Daco-Thracian Graeco-Armenian Graeco-Aryan Graeco-Phrygian Armeno-Phrygian Thraco-Illyrian
Other
Italo-Celtic Indo-Hittite Indo-Uralic
v t e

Specialists have postulated the existence of higher-order subgroups such as Italo-Celtic, Graeco-Armenian, Graeco-Aryan or Graeco-Armeno-Aryan, and Balto-Slavo-Germanic. However, unlike the ten traditional branches, these are all controversial to a greater or lesser degree.^[47]

The Italo-Celtic subgroup was at one point uncontroversial, considered by Antoine Meillet to be even better established than Balto-Slavic.^[48] 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-.^[49] This evidence was prominently challenged by Calvert Watkins,^[50] while Michael Weiss has argued for the subgroup.^[51]

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".^[52] Greek and Indo-Iranian share innovations mainly in verbal morphology and patterns of nominal derivation.^[53] Relations have also been proposed between Phrygian and Greek,^[54] and between Thracian and Armenian.^[55][56] 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^[57] and Tocharian. Shared features with Balto-Slavic languages, on the other hand (especially present and preterit formations), might be due to later contacts.^[58]

The

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 Karl Brugmann did propose a similar type of division 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 genealogical 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.^[63] Kortlandt proposes that the ancestors of Balts and Slavs took part in satemization before being drawn later into the western Indo-European sphere.^[64]

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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.^[65]

Proposals linking the Indo-European languages with a single language family include:^[65]

• Uralic
• Northwest Caucasian

Other proposed families include:^[65]

• Afroasiatic
  language families
• Eskimo–Aleut
  ) and possibly others

Nostratic and Eurasiatic, in turn, have been included in even wider groupings, such as

.

Evolution

Proto-Indo-European

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.

PIE is an

.

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

.

Using a mathematical analysis borrowed from evolutionary biology, Donald Ringe and Tandy Warnow propose the following evolutionary tree of Indo-European branches:^[66]

• Pre-Anatolian (before 3500 BC)
• Pre-Tocharian
• Pre-Italic and Pre-Celtic (before 2500 BC)
• Pre-Armenian and Pre-Greek (after 2500 BC)
• Proto-Indo-Iranian (2000 BC)
• Pre-Germanic and Pre-Balto-Slavic;^[66] Proto-Germanic c. 500 BC^[67]

David Anthony proposes the following sequence:^[68]

• 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 into Iranian and Old Indic 1800 BC

From 1500 BC the following sequence may be given:^{[citation needed]}

• 1500–1000 BC: The
  Balto-Slavic splits into ancestors of modern Baltic and Slavic
  .
• 1000–500 BC: The
  Prakrits across the northern Indian subcontinent, as well as migration of Indo-Aryan speakers to Sri Lanka and the Maldives
  .
• 500–1 BC:
  Scythian cultures extend from Eastern Europe (Pontic Scythians) to Northwest China (Ordos culture
  ).
• 1 BC – AD 500:
  Byzantine rule make the last Anatolian languages extinct. Turkic languages start replacing Scythian languages
  .
• 500–1000:
  Magyars from the western Slavs
  .
• 1000–1500: Late Middle Ages: Attestation of Albanian and Baltic. Modern dialects of Indo-European languages start emerging.
• 1500–2000:
  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.

Key languages for reconstruction

In reconstructing the history of the Indo-European languages and the form of the

.

Most noticeably:[70]

• 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 Rigveda (c. 1500 BC)).
• 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 many 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 – AD 100) and limited Old Latin material from as early as c. 600 BC.
• Germanic language, c. AD 350), along with the combined witness of the other old Germanic languages: most importantly, Old English (c. 800–1000), Old High German (c. 750–1000) and Old Norse
  (c. 1100–1300, with limited earlier sources dating to c. AD 200).
• Younger Avestan
  (c. 900 BC)). Documentation is sparse, but nonetheless quite important due to its highly archaic nature.
• Modern
  Old Lithuanian
  (c. 1500–1700).
• Old Church Slavonic (c. 900–1000).

Other secondary sources, due to poor attestation:

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

Other secondary sources, due to extensive phonological changes and relatively limited attestation:^[71]

• Old Irish (c. AD 700–850).
• Tocharian
  (c. AD 500–800), underwent large phonetic shifts and mergers in the proto-language, and has an almost entirely reworked declension system.
• Classical Armenian (c. AD 400–1000).
• Albanian (c. 1284 – present).

As speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) dispersed, the language's sound system diverged as well, changing according to various

.

PIE is normally reconstructed with a complex system of 15

.) All daughter languages have reduced the number of distinctions among these sounds, often in divergent ways.

As an example, in

Germanic languages

, the following are some of the major changes that happened:

None of the daughter-language families (except possibly

languages corresponds to the outcome of the PIE plain velars:

• The "central" satem languages (
  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 (
  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).
• 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
  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.
• 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.	Prs.
*p	p; phH	p				Ø; chT [x]	f; `-b- [β]	f; -v/f-	*pṓds ~ *ped-	foot	pád-	poús (podós)	pēs (pedis)	pãdas	Piáde
*t	t; thH	t				t; -th- [θ]	þ [θ]; `-d- [ð]; tT-	th; `-d-; tT-	*tréyes	three	tráyas	treĩs	trēs	trỹs	thri (old Persian)
*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	sad
*k	k; cE [tʃ]; khH	k; čE [tʃ]; cE' [ts]	k						*kreuh₂ "raw meat"	OE hrēaw raw	kravíṣ-	kréas	cruor	kraûjas	xoreš
*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	ce, ci
									*kʷekʷlom	wheel	cakrá-	kúklos		kãklas	carx
*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	dah
*ǵ	j [dʒ]; hH [ɦ]	z	ž [ʒ]	g		g [ɡ]; -[ɣ]-	k	c / k; chE'	*ǵénu, *ǵnéu-	OE cnēo knee	jā́nu	gónu	genu		zánu
*g	g; jE [dʒ]; ghH; hH,E [ɦ]	g; žE [ʒ]; dzE'	g						*yugóm	yoke	yugám	zugón	iugum	jùngas	yugh
*gʷ				b; de; g(u)	u [w > v]; gun− [ɡʷ]	b [b]; -[β]-	q [kʷ]	qu	*gʷīw-	quick "alive"	jīvá-	bíos, bíotos	vīvus	gývas	ze-
*bʰ	bh; b..Ch	b		ph; p..Ch	f-; b		b [b]; -[β]-; -f	b; -v/f-(rl)	*bʰéroh₂	bear "carry"	bhar-	phérō	ferō	OCS berǫ	bar-
*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	dvā́raḥ	thurā́	forēs	dùrys	dar
*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	gház
*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	barf
									*gʷʰerm-	??warm	gharmáḥ	thermós	formus	Latv. gar̂me	garm
*s	s			h-; -s; s(T); -Ø-; [¯](R)	s; -r-	s [s]; -[h]-	s; `-z-	s; `-r-	*septḿ̥	seven	saptá	heptá	septem	septynì	haft
	ṣruki- [ʂ]	xruki- [x]	šruki- [ʃ]						*h₂eusōs "dawn"	east	uṣā́ḥ	āṓs	aurōra	aušra	báxtar
*m	m					m [m]; -[w̃]-	m		*mūs	mouse	mū́ṣ-	mũs	mūs	OCS myšĭ	muš
*-m	-m	-˛ [˜]	-n		-m	-n	-Ø		*ḱm̥tóm	hund(red)	śatám	(he)katón	centum	OPrus simtan	sad
*n	n	n; -˛ [˜]	n						*nokʷt-	night	nákt-	núkt-	noct-	naktis	náštá
*l	r (dial. l)	l							*leuk-	light	ruc-	leukós	lūx	laũkas	ruz
*r	r								*h₁reudʰ-	red	rudhirá-	eruthrós	ruber	raũdas	sorx
*i̯	y [j]	j [j]		z [dz > zd, z] / h; -Ø-	i [j]; -Ø-	Ø	j	y	*yugóm	yoke	yugám	zugón	iugum	jùngas	yugh
*u̯	v [ʋ]	v	v [ʋ]	w > h / Ø	u [w > v]	f; -Ø-	w		*h₂weh₁n̥to-	wind	vā́taḥ	áenta	ventus	vėtra	bád
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 (
  dissimilation of aspirates
  ).
• C^E..Ch Before a (PIE) front vowel (i, e) as well as before an aspirated consonant in the next syllable (
  dissimilation of aspirates
  ).
• C^(u)..Ch Before or after a (PIE) u as well as before an aspirated consonant in the next syllable (
  dissimilation of aspirates
  ).

The following table presents a comparison of conjugations of the

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, to bear')
I (1st sg.)	*bʰéroh₂
You (2nd sg.)	*bʰéresi
He/She/It (3rd sg.)	*bʰéreti
We two (1st dual)	*bʰérowos
You two (2nd dual)	*bʰéreth₁es
They two (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 Armenian	Gothic	Old Prussian	Old Church Sl.	Old Albanian
I (1st sg.)	phérō	bʰárāmi	barāmi	ferō	biru; berim	berem	baíra /bɛra/	*bera	berǫ	*berja
You (2nd sg.)	phéreis	bʰárasi	barahi	fers	biri; berir	beres	baíris	*bera	bereši	*berje
He/She/It (3rd sg.)	phérei	bʰárati	baraiti	fert	berid	berē	baíriþ	*bera	beretъ	*berjet
We two (1st dual)	—	bʰárāvas	barāvahi	—	—	—	baíros	—	berevě	—
You two (2nd dual)	phéreton	bʰárathas	—	—	—	—	baírats	—	bereta	—
They two (3rd dual)	phéreton	bʰáratas	baratō	—	—	—	—	—	berete	—
We (1st pl.)	phéromen	bʰárāmas	barāmahi	ferimus	bermai	beremkʿ	baíram	*beramai	beremъ	*berjame
You (2nd pl.)	phérete	bʰáratha	baraθa	fertis	beirthe	berēkʿ	baíriþ	*beratei	berete	*berjeju
They (3rd pl.)	phérousi	bʰáranti	barəṇti	ferunt	berait	beren	baírand	*bera	berǫtъ	*berjanti
Modern representative	Modern Greek	Hindustani	Persian	Portuguese	Irish	Armenian (Eastern; Western)	German	Lithuanian	Slovene	Albanian
I (1st sg.)	férno	(ma͠i) bʰarūm̥	(man) {mi}baram	{con}firo	beirim	berum em; g'perem	(ich) {ge}bäre	beriu	bérem	(unë) bie
You (2nd sg.)	férnis	(tū) bʰarē	(tu) {mi}bari	{con}feres	beirir	berum es; g'peres	(du) {ge}bierst	beri	béreš	(ti) bie
He/She/It (3rd sg.)	férni	(ye/vo) bʰarē	(ān) {mi}barad	{con}fere	beiridh	berum ē; g'perē	(er/sie/es) {ge}biert	beria	bére	(ai/ajo) bie
We two (1st dual)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	beriava	béreva	—
You two (2nd dual)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	beriata	béreta	—
They two (3rd dual)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	beria	béreta	—
We (1st pl.)	férnume	(ham) bʰarēm̥	(mā) {mi}barim	{con}ferimos	beirimid; beiream	berum enkʿ; g'perenkʿ	(wir) {ge}bären	beriame	béremo	(ne) biem
You (2nd pl.)	férnete	(tum) bʰaro	(šomā) {mi}barid	{con}feris	beirthidh	berum ekʿ; g'perekʿ	(ihr) {ge}bärt	beriate	bérete	(ju) bini
They (3rd pl.)	férnun	(ye/vo) bʰarēm̥	(ānān) {mi}barand	{con}ferem	beirid	berum en; g'peren	(sie) {ge}bären	beria	bérejo; berọ́	(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

of periphrastic forms are in parentheses 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. Apart from the first person, the forms given in the table above are dialectical or obsolete. The second and third person forms are typically instead conjugated periphrastically
  by adding a pronoun after the verb: beireann tú, beireann sé/sí, beireann sibh, beireann siad.
• The
  present indicative in Hindustani is roughly compensated by the periphrastic habitual indicative construction, using the habitual participle
  (etymologically from the Sanskrit present participle bʰarant-) and an auxiliary: ma͠i bʰartā hū̃, tū bʰartā hai, vah bʰartā hai, ham bʰarte ha͠i, tum bʰarte ho, ve bʰarte ha͠i (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 descendant of Proto-Germanic *beraną (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 most Romance languages such as Portuguese, other verbs now mean "to carry" (e.g. Pt. portar < Lat. portare) and ferre was borrowed and nativized only in compounds such as sofrer "to suffer" (from Latin sub- and ferre) and conferir "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.
• The dual forms are archaic in standard Lithuanian, and are only presently used in some dialects (e.g.
  Samogitian
  ).
• Among modern Slavic languages, only Slovene continues to have a dual number in the standard variety.

Today, Indo-European languages are spoken by billions of

learners of English alone.

The success of the language family, including the large number of speakers and the vast portions of the Earth that they inhabit, is due to several factors. The ancient

, a pre-Indo-European isolate.

Despite being unaware of their common linguistic origin, diverse groups of Indo-European speakers continued to culturally dominate and often replace the indigenous languages of the western two-thirds of Eurasia. By the beginning of the Common Era, Indo-European peoples controlled almost the entirety of this area: the Celts western and central Europe, the Romans southern Europe, the Germanic peoples northern Europe, the Slavs eastern Europe, the Iranian peoples most of western and central Asia and parts of eastern Europe, and the Indo-Aryan peoples in the Indian subcontinent, with the Tocharians inhabiting the Indo-European frontier in western China. By the medieval period, only the Semitic, Dravidian, Caucasian, and Uralic languages, and the language isolate Basque remained of the (relatively) indigenous languages of Europe and the western half of Asia.

Despite medieval invasions by

, leading to an explosion in the number of Indo-European speakers as well as the territories inhabited by them.

Due to colonization and the modern dominance of Indo-European languages in the fields of politics, global science, technology, education, finance, and sports, even many modern countries whose populations largely speak non-Indo-European languages have Indo-European languages as official languages, and the majority of the global population speaks at least one Indo-European language. The overwhelming majority of languages used on the Internet are Indo-European, with English continuing to lead the group; English in general has in many respects become the lingua franca of global communication.

• Indo-European Swadesh lists

Sources

• AA. VV. (1981). "Indo-European languages". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (15th ed.). Chicago: Helen Hemingway Benton.
• Anthony, David W. (2007). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-691-05887-0
  .
• Auroux, Sylvain (2000). History of the Language Sciences. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
  ISBN 978-3-11-016735-1
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• ISBN 9027221510
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• ISBN 978-9027211866
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• Brugmann, Karl (1886). Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen (in German). Vol. Erster Band. Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner.
• Collinge, N.E. (1985). The Laws of Indo-European. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  ISBN 9789027235305
  .
• Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
  ISBN 978-1-4051-0315-2
  .
• Hamp, Eric (2007). Rexhep Ismajli (ed.). Studime krahasuese për shqipen [Comparative studies on Albanian] (in Albanian). Akademia e Shkencave dhe e Arteve e Kosovës, Prishtinë.
• 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. (eds.). Data analysis, machine learning and applications. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the German Classification Society (GfKl), University of Freiburg, 7–9 March 2007. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
  ISBN 978-3-540-78239-1
  .
• Kortlandt, Frederik (1988). "The Thraco-Armenian consonant shift". Linguistique Balkanique. 31: 71–74.
• Kortlandt, Frederik (1990) [1989]. "The Spread of the Indo-Europeans" (PDF). Journal of Indo-European Studies. 18 (1–2): 131–140.
• Lubotsky, A. (1988). "The Old Phrygian Areyastis-inscription" (PDF). Kadmos. 27: 9–26.
  S2CID 162944161
  .
• Porzig, Walter (1954). Die Gliederung des indogermanischen Sprachgebiets. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag.
• ISBN 978-0-941694-77-3
  .
• Wikidata Q131605459
  .
• ISBN 978-3-8102-1071-5
  .
• Schleicher, August (1874–1877). A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin languages. Part I and Part II. Translated by Bendall, Herbert. London: Trübner & Co. Part II via Internet Archive.
• Szemerényi, Oswald John Louis (1957). "The Problem of Balto-Slav Unity: A Critical Survey". Kratylos. 2. O. Harrassowitz: 97–123.
  • Reprinted in Szemerényi, Oswald John Louis (1991). Considine, P.; Hooker, James T. (eds.). Scripta Minora: Selected Essays in Indo-European, Greek, and Latin. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft. Vol. IV: Indo-European Languages other than Latin and Greek. Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck. pp. 2145–2171.
    ISSN 1816-3920
    .
• ISBN 978-0-19-823870-6
  .
• von Bradke, Peter (1890). Über Methode und Ergebnisse der arischen (indogermanischen) Alterthumswissenshaft (in German). Giessen: J. Ricker'che Buchhandlung.

Further reading

• Bjørn, Rasmus G. (2022). "Indo-European Loanwords and Exchange in Bronze Age Central and East Asia". Evolutionary Human Sciences. 4: e23.
  S2CID 248358873
  .
• ISBN 978-81-7074-128-2
  .
• Chantraine, Pierre (1968). Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Paris: Klincksieck – via Internet Archive.
• ISBN 0-941694-56-9
  .
• Kroonen, Guus; Mallory, James P.; Comrie, Bernard, eds. (2018). Talking Neolithic: Proceedings of the Workshop on Indo-European Origins held at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, December 2–3, 2013. JIES Monograph. Vol. 65.
  ISBN 978-0-9983669-2-0
  .
• ISBN 978-0-500-27616-7
  – via Internet Archive.
• Markey, T. L.; Repanšek, Luka, eds. (2020). Revisiting Dispersions Celtic and Germanic ca. 400 BC – ca. 400 AD Proceedings of the International Interdisciplinary Conference held at Dolenjski muzej, Novo mesto, Slovenia; October 12th – 14th, 2018. JIES Monograph. Vol. 67.
  ISBN 978-0-9845353-7-8
  .
• Meillet, Antoine (1936). Esquisse d'une grammaire comparée de l'arménien classique (2nd ed.). Vienna: Mekhitarist Monastery – via Internet Archive.
• Olander, Thomas, ed. (September 2022). The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective. Cambridge University Press.
  S2CID 161016819
  .
• Ramat, Paolo; Giacalone Ramat, Anna, eds. (1998). The Indo-European Languages. London: Routledge.
  ISBN 0-415-06449-X
  .
• Remys, Edmund (17 December 2007). "General distinguishing features of various Indo-European languages and their relationship to Lithuanian". Indogermanische Forschungen. 112 (2007): 244–276.
  S2CID 169996117
  .
• Strazny, Philip;
  ISBN 978-1-57958-218-0
  .
• ISBN 978-0-618-08250-6
  .
• Asadpour, Hiwa, and Thomas Jügel, eds. Word Order Variation: Semitic, Turkic and Indo-European Languages in Contact. Vol. 31. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2022.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Indo-European languages.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Indo-European Languages".

Library resources about
Indo-European languages

---

• Online books
• Resources in your library
• Resources in other libraries

• Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (1997)

Databases

• Dyen, Isidore; Kruskal, Joseph; Black, Paul (1997). "Comparative Indo-European". wordgumbo. Retrieved 13 December 2009.
• "Indo-European". LLOW Languages of the World. Archived from the original on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
• "Indo-European Documentation Center". Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. 2009. Archived from the original on 3 September 2009. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
• Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2009). "Language Family Trees: Indo-European". Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Online version (16th ed.). Dallas: 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)". Uppsala University. 2021.
• glottothèque – Ancient Indo-European Grammars online, an online collection of introductory videos to Ancient Indo-European languages produced by the University of Göttingen

Lexica

• "Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (IEED)". Leiden, Netherlands: Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Leiden University. Archived from the original on 7 February 2006. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
• "Indo-European Roots Index". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.). Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. 22 August 2008 [2000]. Archived from the original on 17 February 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.