SOMETHING
IN COMMON
About 440 living languages around the world
share Indo-European roots, and similarities
between terms and concepts can be striking. An
asterisk before an Indo-European root indicates
that these words are reconstructions supported
by evidence other than script or writing.CHARIOT(ABOVE) WITH WINGED VICTORY, DEPICTED
ON A SILVER DECADRACHM MINTED IN THE CITY OF
SYRACUSE. FIFTH CENTURY B.C.Family
Father: The Indo-European term is *pθWď U In
Sanskrit it is SLWԬU in German, YDWHU in Celtic (Old
Irish), DWKDLU in Latin, SDWHU in French, SqUH and in
Spanish, SDGUHMother: In Indo-European the term is *măWéU In
Sanskrit it is măWăU in Latin, PDWHU in Old Irish,
măWKDLU in Russian, PDWi in German, PXWWHU in
French, PqUH and in Spanish, PDGUHBrother: The Indo-European word
EKUáWHU is the
origin of the Sanskrit word EKUáWDU, the Old Irish
EUăWKDLU the Latin IUDWHU³from which derives the
French word IUqUHand the English synonym for
brotherly, IUDWHUQDO³the German EUXGHU and the
Russian EUDWSister: The Indo-European word is
VZHVoU In
Sanskrit it is svásDU in Old Irish, VLXU in Latin,
VRURU in Russian, VHVWUi in German, VFKZHVWHU
and in French, VRHXUMATERNAL GODDESS (RIGHT) ASSOCIATED
WITH RAISING CHILDREN. ARCHAIC GREEK ART. NY
CARLSBERG GLYPTOTEK, COPENHAGEN
DEA/ALBUM PRISMA/ALBUMSteppe, north of the Black and Caspian Seas.
Making the most of the domestication of hors-
es, the nomadic herders expanded throughout
Europe in several different waves of migration
starting around 6,000 years ago. As they moved
south and east, they subjugated the peoples they
encountered while spreading PIE language and
culture. Gimbutas expounded the contrast be-
tween the warrior nomads, who buried their dead
in kurgans (burial mounds), and the more peace-
able Neolithic agriculturalists they displaced.
In 1987 British archaeologist Colin Ren-
frew proposed what became known
as the Anatolian hypothesis,
which dates the spread of PIE
to a much earlier time, roughly
8,000 to 9,500 years ago. Ren-
frew also sees different motiva-
tions behind the migrations and
theorized that farmers were not
displaced due to war. Rather they
peacefully expanded out of Ana-
tolia (modern-day Turkey) west
through Europe and east to CentralAsia. As they moved outward, they spread ag-
riculture and language with them.
In recent decades advances in genetics have
made it possible to analyze ancient DNA as a way
to study human migrations and make deeper as-
sessments of these two theories. More recent-
ly, Italian geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
examined genetic data from these regions and
stated that Renfrew’s and Gimbutas’s theories
do not so much contradict as complement each
other: “Genetically speaking, peoples of the Kur-
gan steppe descended at least in part from people
of the Middle Eastern Neolithic who [had] im-
migrated there from Turkey.”
The question as to which theory is the
more likely, however, is a heated debate among
scholars. Yet there is, at least, a degree of con-
sensus that the root of scores of languages
scattered across a swath of the globe originated
in Asia between 6,000 and 9,500 years ago,
and is closely connected with agriculture in
the Neolithic period.STEPPE-ING
STONES
Some associate the
Indo-Europeans with
the Yamna culture of
the Pontic-Caspian
Steppe, located north
of the Black and
Caspian Seas. These
distinctive Yamna
statues (below) were
carved in the third
millennium B.C.
Archaeological
Museum, Kerch,
CrimeaPRISMA/ALBUMSANSKRIT SPECIALIST ÓSCAR PUJOL IS A PROFESSOR AT THE DEPARTMENT OF
FOREIGN LANGUAGES AT THE BANARAS HINDU UNIVERSITY, VARANASI, INDIA.