At first glance, the English, Hindi, Russian, and German languages seem quite different from one another. They use seemingly unique sounds, letters, and ways of translating ideas into words. Thus, it may come as a surprise to learn that these languages are all descended, so to speak, from a common ancestor, much like all the biological species of the world. Unlike biological evolution, however, all languages did not descend from one ancestral language. Rather, there are a number of language trees, each giving rise to dozens, or even hundreds, of daughter languages.
The most fruitful of these trees is Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the ancient language from which around 445 contemporary languages evolved. PIE has been dead for thousands of years without a written record, so much of the language experts have reconstructed is an approximation. But how did the quest for this common ancestor begin? In the late 16th century, globalization and imperialism brought Europeans all over the world and scholars visiting the Indian subcontinent observed similarities between the lexicons of Indian and European languages. During the 1580s, Filippo Sassetti, a Florentine merchant, noted several Sanskrit words that sounded familiar to his Italian-trained ear, such as the word for “God” which is devaḥ in Sanskrit and dio in Italian. Other notable examples are serpent (sarpaḥ/serpe) and nine (nava/nove). While the words are hardly identical, the similarity is indisputable.
The hypothesis of a shared ancestor grew slowly and, in 1786, prominent philologist Sir William Jones presented his ideas at a lecture, stating that “no philologer could examine them all three [Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin], without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.” Recently, researchers have traced back the Indo-European family’s divergence to recreate the vocabulary and structure of that “common source.” When experts observe a phonetic similarity between words of several modern Indo-European languages, and the meaning of the words is the same, they attribute it to a common ancestor. Experts do not use false cognates, or words that sound similar between languages but do not carry the same meaning.
“Prominent philologist Sir William Jones presented his ideas at a lecture, iconically stating that, ‘no philologer could examine them all three [Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin], without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.’”
Despite over a century of research, there is still no universally accepted theory for how exactly PIE evolved into hundreds of daughter languages. The general hypothesis is that the Proto-Indo-Europeans traveled to new places, taking their language with them. The language then evolved into daughter languages based on newfound people, environment, and culture. The broad schema of language divergence is not very different from biological evolution, specifically the idea that geographic isolation leads to the proliferation of distinctly new but traceable traits. In this case, linguistic changes within the isolated population are analogous to biological traits. However, disagreements stem from inconclusive evidence of the origin of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and the patterns in which they traveled.
The frontrunning theories place the linguistic homeland, or Urheimat, in either Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) or the area roughly between the Black and Caspian seas known as the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. The Steppe hypothesis theorizes that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were an invasive tribe that spread its language by overtaking other settlements. Archeological discoveries, as well as haplotype genetics, may support this hypothesis. Haplotypes are groups of genetic variants that are inherited together. The R1a1 haplotype is commonly found in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as occasionally in Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. This distribution supports the geographical spread proposed by the Steppe hypothesis. The competing Anatolian hypothesis, credited to the scholar Colin Renfrew, ties the spread of PIE to the peaceful Neolithic spread of agriculture from the Fertile Crescent. The Anatolian theory is also supported by archeology and linguistic reconstruction but lacks the convincing support of DNA analyses associated with the Steppe hypothesis.
“Even cultures as different from each other as Italian and Afghani are tied together by the origins of their languages.”
As modern science and technology improve, more evidence will likely emerge to support one theory or another or even give rise to an entirely new hypothesis. We may never conclusively know the origin of many modern languages, but what we know already gives us valuable insight into our interconnected history. Even cultures as different from each other as Italian and Afghani are tied together by the origins of their languages. We learned of our shared biological ancestry quite some time ago, but it has often failed to unite us. Perhaps one day, the common ancient origin of our languages, which is tied inextricably to our cultures, will be enough to overcome our modern differences.
“Perhaps one day, the common ancient origin of our languages… will be enough to overcome our modern differences.”
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