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LRG

Old Turkic Uyghur Khaganate and probably extinct by the 10th century.

1. Balto-Slavic languages, believed by most Indo-Europeanists to form a phylogenetic unit, while a minority ascribes similarities to prolonged language contact.
   • Slavic languages (from Proto-Slavic), attested from the 9th century AD (possibly earlier; see Slavic runes), earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
   • Baltic languages, attested from the 14th century AD, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European (PIE).
2. Albanian language, attested from the 14th century AD; Proto-Albanian likely emerged from "Paleo-Balkanic" predecessors.

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

• Illyrian languages — related to Messapian and Albanian.
• Venetic language — close to Italic.
• Liburnian language — apparently grouped with Venetic.
• Messapian language — not conclusively deciphered.
• Phrygian language — language of ancient Phrygia, possibly close to Greek, Thracian and Armenian.
• Paionian language — extinct language once spoken north of Macedon.
• Thracian language — possibly including Dacian.
• Dacian language — possibly very close to Thracian.
• Ancient Macedonian language — proposed relationships to Greek, Illyrian, Thracian, and Phrygian.
• Ligurian language — possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic.
• Lusitanian language — possibly related to (or part of) Celtic, or Ligurian, or Italic.

Grouping

Membership of these languages in the Indo-European language family is determined by genetic relationships, meaning that all members are presumed to be descendants of a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European. Membership in the various branches, groups and subgroups or 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 so be stated in rules that apply to all of them. Many of their common features are presumed to be innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, the source of all the Germanic languages.

Tree versus wave model

To the evolutionary history of a language family, a genetic "tree model" is considered appropriate especially if communities do not remain in effective contact as their languages diverge. Exempted from this concept are shared innovations acquired by borrowing (or other means of convergence), that cannot be considered genetic. In this case the so-called "wave model" applies, featuring borrowings and no clear underlying genetic tree. 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, since 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 to be 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 that comprise 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, while 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.

The Indo-Iranian languages form the largest sub-branch of Indo-European in terms of the number of native speakers as well as in terms of the number of individual languages.

Proposed subgroupings

Specialists have postulated the existence of such subfamilies (subgroups) as Italo-Celtic, Graeco-Armenian, Graeco-Aryan, and Germanic with Balto-Slavic. The vogue for such subgroups waxes and wanes; Italo-Celtic for example used to be a standard subgroup of Indo-European, but it is now little honored, in part because much of the evidence on which it was based has turned out to have been misinterpreted.

Subgroupings of the Indo European languages are commonly held to reflect genetic relationships and linguistic change. The generic differentiation of Proto-Indo-European into dialects and languages happened hand in hand with language contact and the spread of innovations over different territories.

Rather than being entirely genetic, the grouping of satem languages is commonly inferred as an innovative change that occurred just once, and subsequently spread over a large cohesive territory or PIE continuum that affected all but the peripheral areas. For instance, Kortlandt proposes this satemization process involved interaction between a western and central Indo-European sphere of influence to the ancestors of Balts and Slavs.

Shared features of Phrygian and Greek and of Thracian and Armenian group the southeastern branches of Indo-European together. Some fundamental shared features, like the verbal aorist category (this is 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 and Tocharian. Shared features with Balto-Slavic languages, on the other hand (especially present and preterit formations), might be due to later contacts.

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 and the preservation of laryngeals. 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. Holm (2008) based on lexical calculations arrives at a picture roughly replicating the general scholarly opinion and refuting the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.

Satem and centum languages

The Satem and Centum languages is a much-debated characterization of Indo-European languages devised by von Bradke in the late 19th century based on a single main isogloss.

Suggested superfamilies

Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages form part of a hypothetical Nostratic language superfamily, and attempt to relate Indo-European to other language families, such as South Caucasian languages, Uralic languages, Dravidian languages, and Afroasiatic languages. This theory, like the similar Eurasiatic theory of Joseph Greenberg, and the Proto-Pontic postulation of John Colarusso, remains highly controversial, however, and is not accepted by most linguists in the field. Objections to such groupings are not based on any theoretical claim about the likely historical existence or non-existence of such super-families; 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; it is very hard to find concrete evidence that transcends chance resemblance. Since the noise-to-signal ratio in historical linguistics increases 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. For further discussion of these methodological questions, see these resources.

Historical evolution

Proto-Indo-European

The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar (1833) to August Schleicher's 1861 Compendium and up to Karl Brugmann's Grundriss published from the 1880s. Brugmann's junggrammatische reevaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussure's development of the laryngeal theory may be considered the beginning of "contemporary" 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, in the wake of Kuryłowicz's 1956 Apophonie, understanding of the ablaut. 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

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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.

• 2500 BC–2000 BC: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects is complete. Proto-Greek is spoken in the Balkans, Proto-Indo-Iranian north of the Caspian in the emerging Andronovo culture. The Bronze Age reaches Central Europe with the Beaker culture, likely composed of various Centum dialects. The Tarim mummies possibly correspond to proto-Tocharians.
• 2000 BC–1500 BC: Catacomb culture north of the black sea. The chariot is invented, leading to the split and rapid spread of Iranian and Indo-Aryan from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex over much of Central Asia, Northern India, Iran and Eastern Anatolia. Proto-Anatolian is split into Hittite and Luwian. The pre-Proto-Celtic Unetice culture has an active metal industry (Nebra skydisk).
• 1500 BC–1000 BC: The Nordic Bronze Age develops pre-Proto-Germanic, and the (pre)-Proto-Celtic Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the Iron Age. Migration of the Proto-Italic speakers into the Italian peninsula (Bagnolo stele). Redaction of the Rigveda and rise of the Vedic civilization in the Punjab. The Mycenaean civilization gives way to the Greek Dark Ages.
• 1000 BC–500 BC: The Celtic languages spread over Central and Western Europe. Baltic languages are spoken in a huge area from present-day Poland to the Ural Mountains. Proto Germanic. Homer and the beginning of Classical Antiquity. The Vedic Civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Siddhartha Gautama attains enlightenment and preaches Buddhism. Zoroaster composes the Gathas, rise of the Achaemenid Empire, replacing the Elamites and Babylonia. Separation of Proto-Italic into Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Faliscan. Genesis of the Greek and Old Italic alphabets. A variety of Paleo-Balkan languages are spoken in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages are extinct.
• 500 BC–1 BC/AD: Classical Antiquity: spread of Greek and Latin throughout the Mediterranean, and during Hellenism (Indo-Greeks) to Central Asia and the Hindukush. Kushan Empire, Mauryan Empire. Proto-Germanic.
• 1 BC/AD 500: Late Antiquity, Gupta period; attestation of Armenian. Proto-Slavic. The Roman Empire and then the Great Migrations marginalize the Celtic languages to the British Isles.
• 500–1000: Early Middle Ages. The Viking Age forms an Old Norse koine spanning Scandinavia, the British Isles and Iceland. The Islamic conquest and the Turkic expansion results in the Arabization and Turkification of significant areas where Indo-European languages were spoken. Tocharian is extinct in the course of the Turkic expansion while Northeastern Iranian (Scytho-Sarmatian) is reduced to small refugia.
• 1000–1500: Late Middle Ages: Attestation of Albanian and Baltic languages.
• 1500–2000: Early Modern period to present: Colonialism results in the spread of Indo-European languages to every continent, most notably Romance (North, Central and South America, French Canada, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, West Asia), 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.

Sound changes

As the Proto-Indo-European language broke up, its sound system diverged as well, changing according to various sound laws evidenced in the daughter languages. Notable cases of such sound laws include Grimm's law in Proto-Germanic, loss of prevocalic *p- in Proto-Celtic, loss of intervocalic *s- in Proto-Greek, Brugmann's law in Proto-Indo-Iranian, as well as satemization (discussed above). Grassmann's law and Bartholomae's law may or may not have operated at the common Indo-European stage.

Comparison of conjugations

The following table presents a comparison of conjugations of the thematic present indicative of the verbal root *bʰer- 'to carry' (whence 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.

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.

• 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.
• The Hindi verb bharnā, the continuation of the Sanskrit verb, can have a variety of meanings, but the most common is "to fill". The forms given in the table, although etymologically derived from the present indicative, now have the meaning of subjunctive. The present indicative is conjugated periphrastically, using a participle (etymologically the Sanskrit present participle bharant-) and an auxiliary: maiṃ bhartā hūṃ, tū bhartā hai, vah bhartā hai, ham bharte haiṃ, tum bharte ho, ve bharte haiṃ (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 cognate of Germanic beranan (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 French, the irregular Latin verb ferre "to carry" has been supplanted by other verbs and ferre only survives in compounds such as souffrir "to suffer" (from Latin sub- and ferre) and Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "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 not in everyday language. 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.
• In Modern Russian брать (brat) carries the meaning to take. Бремя (bremia) means burden, as something heavy to bear, and derivative беременность (beremennost) means pregnancy.

See also

• Grammatical conjugation
• Indo-European copula
• Indo-European sound laws
• Indo-European studies
• Language family
• List of Indo-European languages
• Modern Indo-European
• Nostratic languages
• Proto-Indo-European language
• Proto-Indo-European root

Citations and notes

1. such as Schleicher 1861, Szemerényi 1957, Collinge 1985, and Beekes 1995
2. Of the Albanian Language - William Martin Leake, London, 1814.
3. "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.
4. Perfect Phylogenetic Networks: A New Methodology for Reconstructing the Evolutionary History of Natural Languages - Luay Nakhleh,Don Ringe & Tandy Warnow, 2005, Language- Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, Volume 81, Number 2, June 2005
5. Mallory J.P., D. Q. Adams (Hrsg.): Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, London, 1997
6. Britannica 15th edition, vol.22, 1981, p.588, 594
7. Frederik Kortlandt-The spread of the Indo-Europeans, 1989
8. Lubotsky - The Old Phrygian Areyastis-inscription, Kadmos 27, 9-26, 1988
9. Kortlandt - The Thraco-Armenian consonant shift, Linguistique Balkanique 31, 71-74, 1988
10. Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol.22, Helen Hemingway Benton Publisher, Chicago, (15th ed.) 1981, p.593
11. George S. Lane, Douglas Q. Adams, Britannica 15th edition 22:667, "The Tocharian problem"
12. 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).
13. 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
14. Britannica 15th edition, 22 p. 594, "Indo-Hittite hypothesis"
15. Holm, Hans J.: The Distribution of Data in Word Lists and its Impact on the Subgrouping of Languages. In: Christine Preisach, Hans Burkhardt, Lars Schmidt-Thieme, Reinhold Decker (eds.): 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. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg-Berlin (2008)
16. http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/iedocctr/ie-lg/Balto-Slavic.html

References

• Auroux, Sylvain, History of the Language Sciences, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2000 ISBN 3110167352.
• Kortlandt, Frederik, 1990, The Spread of the Indo-Europeans, Journal of Indo-European Studies, 18.1-2: 131-140
• Lubotsky, A., The Old Phrygian Areyastis-inscription, Kadmos 27, 9-26, 1988
• Kortlandt, Frederik , The Thraco-Armenian consonant shift, Linguistique Balkanique 31, 71-74, 1988
• Lane, George S., Adams, Douglas Q., The Tocharian problem, Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol.22, Helen Hemingway Benton Publisher, Chicago, (15th ed.) 1981
• Renfrew, C., 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, Institute for the Study of Man, Washington, DC, 2001
• Houwink ten Cate, H.J., Melchert, H. Craig and van den Hout, Theo P.J. Indo-European languages, The parent language, Laryngeal theory, Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol.22, Helen Hemingway Benton Publisher, Chicago, (15th ed.) 1981
• Holm, Hans J., The Distribution of Data in Word Lists and its Impact on the Subgrouping of Languages, in Christine Preisach, Hans Burkhardt, Lars Schmidt-Thieme, Reinhold Decker (eds.), 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, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg-Berlin, 2008
• Szemerényi, Oswald (1999). Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198238706. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help); Unknown parameter |ISBN status= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Further reading

• Beekes, Robert S. P. (1995). Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Chakrabarti, Byomkes (1994). A comparative study of Santali and Bengali. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co. ISBN 8170741289.
• Collinge, N. E. (1985). The Laws of Indo-European. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Mallory, J.P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27616-1.
• Renfrew, Colin (1987). Archaeology & Language. The Puzzle of the Indo-European Origins. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-02495-7.
• Meillet, Antoine. Esquisse d’une grammaire comparée de l’arménien classique,1903.
• Schleicher, August, A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages (1861/62).
• Strazny, Philip (Ed). (2000). Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics (1 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1579582180. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help); Unknown parameter |ISBN status= ignored (help)
• Szemerényi, Oswald (1957). "The problem of Balto-Slav unity". Kratylos. 2: 97–123.
• Watkins, Calvert (2000). The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-08250-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help); Unknown parameter |ISBN status= ignored (help)
• Remys, Edmund, General distinguishing features of various Indo-European languages and their relationship to Lithuanian. Berlin, New York: Indogermanische Forschungen, Vol. 112, 2007.
• Babaev, Kirill (2008). Origins of Indo-European Person Markers. Eidos. ISBN 978-5-902948-30-8. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help); Unknown parameter |ISBN status= ignored (help)

External links

Databases

• Dyen, Isidore; Kruskal, Joseph; Black, Paul (1997). "Comparative Indo-European". wordgumbo. Retrieved 13 December 2009.
• "Indo-European". LLOW Languages of the World. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
• "Indo-European Documentation Center". Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. 2009. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
• Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2009), "Language Family Trees: Indo-European", Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Online version (Sixteenth ed.), Dallas, Tex.: SIL International.
• "The Linguist List Multitree Portal for Indo-European". Eastern Michigan University. 1989–2007. Retrieved 14 December 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
• "Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien: TITUS" (in German). TITUS, University of Frankfurt. 2003. Retrieved 13 December 2009.

Lexica

• "Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (IEED)". Leiden, Netherlands: Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Leiden University. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
• "Indo-European Roots Index". The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth ed.). Internet Archive: Wayback Machine. August 22, 2008 . Retrieved 9 December 2009.
• Köbler, Gerhard (2000). "Indogermanisches Wörterbuch" (in German) (3. Auflage ed.). Gerhard Köbler. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
• Schalin, Johan (2009). "Lexicon of Early Indo-European Loanwords Preserved in Finnish". Johan Schalin. Retrieved 9 December 2009.

• Indo-European languages
• Language families
• Indo-European