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29-634: The Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (commonly abbreviated IEED ) was a research project of the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University , initiated in 1991 by Peter Schrijver and others. It was financially supported by the Faculty of Humanities and Centre for Linguistics of Leiden University , Brill Publishers , and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research . The IEED project

58-404: A common source) in a study published posthumously in 1640. He related European languages to Indo-Iranian languages (which include Sanskrit ). The idea that the first language was Hebrew continued to be advanced for some time: Pierre Besnier (1648 – 1705) in 1674 published a book which was translated into English the following year: A philosophical essay for the reunion of the languages, or,

87-495: A common source. A study of the Insular Celtic languages was carried out by George Buchanan in the 16th century and the first field study was by Edward Lhuyd around 1700. He published his work in 1707, shortly after translating a study by Paul-Yves Pezron on Breton. Grammars of European languages other than Latin and Classical Greek began to be published at the end of the 15th century. This led to comparison between

116-471: A first, the methodological issues in assigning languages to genetic groups. For example, he observed that loanwords should be eliminated in comparative studies, and also correctly put great emphasis on common morphological systems and irregularity as indicators of relationship. A few years earlier, the Silesian physician Johann Elichmann (1601/02 – 1639) already used the expression ex eadem origine (from

145-744: A geographical term, to indicate the newly proposed language family in Eurasia spanning from the Indian subcontinent till the European continent . Among the other names suggested were: Rask's japetisk or "Japhetic languages", after the old notion of " Japhetites " and ultimately Japheth , son of the Biblical Noah , parallels the term Semitic , from Noah's son Shem , and Hamitic , from Noah's son Ham . Japhetic and Hamitic are both obsolete, apart from occasional dated use of term "Hamito-Semitic" for

174-471: A less typical Indo-European vocabulary and other striking features have been interpreted alternately as archaic retentions, which means that the common Indo-European structural features observed in the non-Anatolian branches evolved at a later stage, or just as later innovations being caused by prolonged contacts in typologically alien surroundings "en route" or after their arrival in Anatolia . In favor of

203-409: A short essay. Like Scaliger, he rejected a Hebrew root, but also rejected the idea of unrelated language groups and considered them all to have a common source. Around the 12th century, similarities between European languages became recognised. In Iceland, scholars noted the resemblances between Icelandic and English. Gerald of Wales claimed that Welsh , Cornish , and Breton were descendants of

232-541: Is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages , both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical proto-language from which all of these languages are descended, a language dubbed Proto-Indo-European (PIE), and its speakers, the Proto-Indo-Europeans , including their society and Proto-Indo-European mythology . The studies cover where

261-665: Is a matter of terminology, though, as the hypothesis does not dispute the ultimate genetic relation of Anatolian with Indo-European; it just means to emphasize the assumed magnitude of temporal separation. According to Craig Melchert , the current tendency is to suppose that Proto-Indo-European evolved, and that the "prehistoric speakers" of Anatolian became isolated "from the rest of the PIE speech community, so as not to share in some common innovations." Hittite, as well as its Anatolian cousins, split off from Proto-Indo-European at an early stage, thereby preserving archaisms that were later lost in

290-531: Is considered to attribute too much weight to the Anatolian evidence and as early as 1938 it was demonstrated that the Anatolian group should be placed on the same level as other Indo-European subgroups and not as equal with Indo-European. 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

319-588: 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. Indo-Hittite Proponents of

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348-505: Is used to compare patterns within one dialect , without comparison with other dialects and languages, to try to arrive at an understanding of regularities operating at an earlier stage in that dialect. It has also been used to infer information about earlier stages of PIE than can be reached by the comparative method. The IE languages are sometimes hypothesized to be part of super-families such as Nostratic or Eurasiatic . The ancient Greeks were aware that their language had changed since

377-660: Is well established in English and French literature, while Indogermanisch remains current in German literature, but alongside a growing number of uses of Indoeuropäisch . Similarly, Indo-Europees has now largely replaced the still occasionally encountered Indogermaans in Dutch scientific literature. Indo-Hittite is sometimes used for the wider family including Anatolian by those who consider that IE and Anatolian are comparable separate branches. The comparative method

406-464: The Afro-Asiatic languages . In English, Indo-German was used by J. C. Prichard in 1826 although he preferred Indo-European . In French, use of indo-européen was established by A. Pictet (1836). In German literature, Indoeuropäisch was used by Franz Bopp since 1835, while the term Indogermanisch had already been introduced by Julius von Klapproth in 1823, intending to include

435-629: The French Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in 1767 in which he demonstrated the similarity between the Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, German and Russian languages. Despite the above, the discovery of the genetic relationship of the whole family of Indo-European languages is often attributed to Sir William Jones , a British judge in India , who, in a 1786 lecture (published 1788) remarked: The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity,

464-605: The Indo-Hittite hypothesis are the very Indo-European agricultural terminology conserved in Anatolia, otherwise considered the cradle of agriculture, and the laryngeal theory that hypothesizes the existence of one or more additional spirant or stop consonants in the Indo-European parent language that has only been attested in Hittite and of which only traces are left outside Anatolian. However, in general this hypothesis

493-402: The Indo-Hittite hypothesis claim the separation preceded the spread of the remaining branches by several millennia, possibly as early as 7000 BC. In this context, the proto-language before the split of Anatolian would be called Proto-Indo-Hittite , and the proto-language of the remaining branches, before the next split, presumably of Tocharian , would be called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). This

522-535: The Romance languages and Greek were related. In 1741 Gottfried Hensel (1687 – 1767) published a language map of the world in his Synopsis Universae Philologiae . He still believed that all languages were derived from Hebrew. Mikhail Lomonosov compared numbers and other linguistic features in different languages of the world including Slavic, Baltic ("Kurlandic"), Iranian (" Medic "), Finnish, Chinese, Khoekhoe ("Hottentot") and others. He emphatically expressed

551-400: The antiquity of the linguistic stages accessible to comparative method in the drafts for his Russian Grammar published in 1755: Imagine the depth of time when these languages separated! ... Polish and Russian separated so long ago! Now think how long ago Kurlandic! Think when Latin, Greek, German, and Russian! Oh, great antiquity! Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux (1691 – 1779) sent a Mémoire to

580-453: The art of knowing all by the mastery of one . Leibniz in 1710 proposed the concept of the so-called Japhetic language group, consisting of languages now known as Indo-European, which he contrasted with the so-called Aramaic languages (now generally known as Semitic ). The concept of actually reconstructing an Indo-European proto-language was suggested by William Wotton in 1713, while showing, among others, that Icelandic ("Teutonic"),

609-455: The language originated and how it spread. This article also lists Indo-European scholars, centres, journals and book series. The term Indo-European itself now current in English literature, was coined in 1813 by the British scholar Sir Thomas Young , although at that time, there was no consensus as to the naming of the recently discovered language family. However, he seems to have used it as

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638-492: The northernmost and the southernmost of the family's branches, as it were as an abbreviation of the full listing of involved languages that had been common in earlier literature. Indo-Germanisch became established by the works of August Friedrich Pott , who understood it to include the easternmost and the westernmost branches, opening the doors to ensuing fruitless discussions whether it should not be Indo-Celtic , or even Tocharo-Celtic . Today, Indo-European , indo-européen

667-494: The other Indo-European languages. Traditionally there has been a strong notion among Indo-European linguistics that the Anatolian branch was separated earlier than other branches. Within the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis , the split is estimated to have occurred in roughly 4000 BC. Some fundamental shared features such as the aorist category of the verb (which denotes action without reference to duration or completion), with

696-407: The perfect active particle -s fixed to the stem, link the Anatolian languages closer to the southeastern languages such as Greek and Armenian and to Tocharian . Features such as the lack of feminine gender in the declensions of nominals, a division between an "animate" common gender and an "inanimate" neuter gender, a reduced vowel system, a tendency towards a greater simplicity of the case system,

725-478: The time of Homer (about 730   BC). Aristotle (about 330   BC) identified four types of linguistic change: insertion, deletion, transposition and substitution. In the 1st century BC, the Romans were aware of the similarities between Greek and Latin. In the post-classical West, with the influence of Christianity , language studies were undermined by the attempt to derive all languages from Hebrew since

754-500: The time of Saint Augustine . Prior studies classified the European languages as Japhetic . One of the first scholars to challenge the idea of a Hebrew root to the languages of Europe was Joseph Scaliger (1540 – 1609). He identified Greek, Germanic , Romance and Slavic language groups by comparing the word for "God" in various European languages. In 1710, Leibniz applied ideas of gradualism and uniformitarianism to linguistics in

783-573: The various languages. In the 16th century, visitors to India became aware of similarities between Indian and European languages. For example, Filippo Sassetti reported striking resemblances between Sanskrit and Italian. In his 1647 essay, Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn proposed the existence of a primitive common language he called "Scythian". He included in its descendants Dutch , German , Latin , Greek , and Persian , and his posthumously published Originum Gallicarum liber of 1654 added Slavic , Celtic and Baltic . The 1647 essay discusses, as

812-557: Was formally developed in the 19th century and applied first to Indo-European languages. The existence of the Proto-Indo-Europeans had been inferred by comparative linguistics as early as 1640, while attempts at an Indo-European proto-language reconstruction date back as far as 1713. However, by the 19th century, still no consensus had been reached about the internal groups of the IE family. The method of internal reconstruction

841-640: Was supervised by Alexander Lubotsky . It aimed to accomplish the following goals: The project has resulted in the following printed works: Indo-European studies Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Indo-European studies ( German : Indogermanistik )

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