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55-758: Both the German and the Czech name have their origin in Proto-Indo-European ad-ra , meaning "flowing water". The Wondreb originates in the territory of Stará Voda in the Upper Palatine Forest at an elevation of 732 m (2,402 ft) and until its confluence with the brook Griesbach, it is known as Nikolausbach/Mikulášský potok. The river flows to Odrava , where it merges with the Ohře River at an elevation of 416 m (1,365 ft). It

110-546: A French Jesuit who spent most of his life in India, had specifically demonstrated the analogy between Sanskrit and European languages. According to current academic consensus, Jones's famous work of 1786 was less accurate than his predecessors', as he erroneously included Egyptian , Japanese and Chinese in the Indo-European languages, while omitting Hindi . In 1818, Danish linguist Rasmus Christian Rask elaborated

165-677: A PIE homeland, the Kurgan and Anatolian hypotheses are the ones most widely accepted, and also the ones most debated against each other. Following the publication of several studies on ancient DNA in 2015, Colin Renfrew, the original author and proponent of the Anatolian hypothesis, has accepted the reality of migrations of populations speaking one or several Indo-European languages from the Pontic steppe towards Northwestern Europe. The table lists

220-526: A century later, after learning Sanskrit in India, Sir William Jones detected systematic correspondences; he described them in his Third Anniversary Discourse to the Asiatic Society in 1786, concluding that all these languages originated from the same source. From his initial intuitions there developed the hypothesis of an Indo-European language family consisting of several hundred related languages and dialects . The 2009 Ethnologue estimates

275-549: A conventional mark of reconstructed words, such as * wódr̥ , * ḱwn̥tós , or * tréyes ; these forms are the reconstructed ancestors of the modern English words water , hound , and three , respectively. No direct evidence of PIE exists; scholars have reconstructed PIE from its present-day descendants using the comparative method . For example, compare the pairs of words in Italian and English: piede and foot , padre and father , pesce and fish . Since there

330-453: A detailed, though conservative, overview of the lexical knowledge accumulated by 1959. Jerzy Kuryłowicz's 1956 Apophonie gave a better understanding of Indo-European ablaut . From the 1960s, knowledge of Anatolian became robust enough to establish its relationship to PIE. Scholars have proposed multiple hypotheses about when, where, and by whom PIE was spoken. The Kurgan hypothesis , first put forward in 1956 by Marija Gimbutas , has become

385-627: A language. From the 1870s, the Neogrammarians proposed that sound laws have no exceptions, as illustrated by Verner's law , published in 1876, which resolved apparent exceptions to Grimm's law by exploring the role of accent (stress) in language change. August Schleicher 's A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin Languages (1874–77) represented an early attempt to reconstruct

440-626: A millennium. The most popular hypothesis for the origin and spread of the language is the Kurgan hypothesis , which postulates an origin in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Eastern Europe. The existence of PIE was first postulated in the 18th century by Sir William Jones , who observed the similarities between Sanskrit , Ancient Greek , and Latin . By the early 20th century, well-defined descriptions of PIE had been developed that are still accepted today (with some refinements). The largest developments of

495-470: A more southern homeland to explain these borrowings. According to Mallory and Adams, some of these borrowings may be too speculative or from a later date, but they consider the proposed Semitic loans *táwros 'bull' and *wéyh₁on- 'wine; vine' to be more likely. Anthony notes that those Semitic borrowings may also have occurred through the advancement of Anatolian farmer cultures via the Danube valley into

550-964: A much earlier date for the Indo-European languages, proposing an origin in Anatolia and an initial spread with the earliest farmers who migrated to Europe. It has been the only serious alternative for the steppe-theory, but suffers from a lack of explanatory power. Also, the Armenian hypothesis proposes that the Urheimat of the Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus. While the Armenian hypothesis has been criticized on archeological and chronological grounds, recent genetic research has revived debate. The Dutch scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn (1612–1653) noted extensive similarities between various European languages , Sanskrit , and Persian . Over

605-451: A sophisticated system of declension and verbs used a similarly sophisticated system of conjugation . Relationships to other language families, including the Uralic languages , have been proposed but remain controversial. There is no written evidence of Proto-Indo-European, so all knowledge of the language is derived by reconstruction from later languages using linguistic techniques such as

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660-439: A synthesis of linguistics , archaeology , anthropology and genetics has established the existence of Proto-Indo-European and the spread of its daughter dialects through migrations of large populations of its speakers, as well as the recruitment of new speakers through emulation of conquering elites. Comparative linguistics describes the similarities between various languages governed by laws of systematic change , which allow

715-557: A thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis , the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Europe. The linguistic reconstruction of PIE has provided insight into the pastoral culture and patriarchal religion of its speakers. As speakers of Proto-Indo-European became isolated from each other through the Indo-European migrations ,

770-722: A total of about 439 Indo-European languages and dialects, about half of these (221) belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch based in Southern Asian subregion. The Indo-European family includes most of the major current languages of Europe , of the Iranian plateau , of the northern half of the Indian Subcontinent , and of Sri Lanka , with kindred languages also formerly spoken in parts of ancient Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing from

825-614: Is 66.1 km (41.1 mi) long, of which 48.1 km (29.9 mi) is in Germany, 16.8 km (10.4 mi) is in the Czech Republic and 1.2 km (0.7 mi) forms the Czech-German border. Its drainage basin has an area of 507.1 km (195.8 sq mi), of which 311.0 km (120.1 sq mi) is in Germany and 196.1 km (75.7 sq mi) is in the Czech Republic. The longest tributaries of

880-422: Is a consistent correspondence of the initial consonants ( p and f ) that emerges far too frequently to be coincidental, one can infer that these languages stem from a common parent language . Detailed analysis suggests a system of sound laws to describe the phonetic and phonological changes from the hypothetical ancestral words to the modern ones. These laws have become so detailed and reliable as to support

935-572: Is believed to have had an elaborate system of morphology that included inflectional suffixes (analogous to English child, child's, children, children's ) as well as ablaut (vowel alterations, as preserved in English sing, sang, sung, song ) and accent . PIE nominals and pronouns had a complex system of declension , and verbs similarly had a complex system of conjugation . The PIE phonology , particles , numerals , and copula are also well-reconstructed. Asterisks are used by linguists as

990-506: Is generally regarded as the result of intensive borrowing, which suggests that their homelands were located near each other. Proto-Indo-European also exhibits lexical loans to or from Caucasian languages , particularly Proto-Northwest Caucasian and Proto-Kartvelian , which suggests a location close to the Caucasus. Gramkelidze and Ivanov , using the now largely unsupported glottalic theory of Indo-European phonology, also proposed Semitic borrowings into Proto-Indo-European, suggesting

1045-536: Is not completely clear, from an insufficiency of evidence. The authors point out that these dates, which are only approximate, are not inconsistent with the dates established by other methods for the various archaeological cultures which are thought to be associated with Indo-European languages. For example, the date for the Tocharian break-off corresponds to the migration that gave rise to the Afanasievo culture;

1100-1006: Is not possible. Forming an exception, Phrygian is sufficiently well-attested to allow proposals of a particularly close affiliation with Greek, and a Graeco-Phrygian branch of Indo-European is becoming increasingly accepted. Proto-Indo-European phonology has been reconstructed in some detail. Notable features of the most widely accepted (but not uncontroversial) reconstruction include: The vowels in commonly used notation are: Indo-European migrations 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 The Indo-European migrations are hypothesized migrations of peoples who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and

1155-417: Is the linguistic reconstruction of a common ancestor of the Indo-European languages , as spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans after the split-off of Anatolian and Tocharian. PIE was the first proposed proto-language to be widely accepted by linguists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing it than any other proto-language and it is by far the most well-understood of all proto-languages of its age. During

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1210-424: Is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family . No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language , and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. The majority of linguistic work during

1265-694: The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex ( c.  2400 –1600 BCE) and spread to the Levant ( Mitanni ), northern India ( Vedic people , c.  1700 BCE ). The Iranian languages spread back throughout the steppes with the Scyths , and into Ancient Iran with the Medes , Parthians and Persians from c.  800 BCE . A number of alternative theories have been proposed. Colin Renfrew 's Anatolian hypothesis suggests

1320-862: The Bronze Age in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek , the Indo-European family is significant in historical linguistics as possessing the second-longest recorded history , after the Afroasiatic family . Almost 3 billion native speakers use Indo-European languages, making them by far the largest language family. Of the 20 world languages with the largest numbers of native speakers , twelve are Indo-European – Spanish , English , Hindi , Portuguese , Bengali , Russian , German , Punjabi , Marathi , French , Urdu , and Italian – accounting for over 1.7 billion native speakers. The (late) Proto-Indo-European language (PIE)

1375-558: The Indian subcontinent became aware of similarities between Indo-Iranian languages and European languages, and as early as 1653, Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn had published a proposal for a proto-language ("Scythian") for the following language families: Germanic , Romance , Greek , Baltic , Slavic , Celtic , and Iranian . In a memoir sent to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1767, Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux ,

1430-591: The Neogrammarian hypothesis : the Indo-European sound laws apply without exception. William Jones , an Anglo-Welsh philologist and puisne judge in Bengal , caused an academic sensation when in 1786 he postulated the common ancestry of Sanskrit , Greek , Latin , Gothic , the Celtic languages , and Old Persian , but he was not the first to state such a hypothesis. In the 16th century, European visitors to

1485-451: The comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction . Most linguists recognize there is a limit to linguistic reconstruction, and that reconstructing an ancestral language to Proto-Indo-European might not be possible. The Indo-Hittite hypothesis postulates a common predecessor which both the Anatolian languages and the other Indo-European languages came from, called Proto-Indo-Hittite. Although PIE logically had predecessors,

1540-478: The 19th century was devoted to the reconstruction of PIE and its daughter languages , and many of the modern techniques of linguistic reconstruction (such as the comparative method ) were developed as a result. PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from approximately 4500 BCE to 2500 BCE during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age , though estimates vary by more than

1595-518: The 19th century, the vast majority of linguistic work was devoted to reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European or its daughter proto-languages such as Proto-Germanic , and most of the current techniques of historical linguistics (e. g. the comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction ) were developed as a result. Scholars estimate that PIE may have been spoken as a single language (before divergence began) around 3500 BCE, though estimates by different authorities can vary by more than

1650-603: The 20th century have been the discovery of Anatolian and Tocharian languages and the acceptance of the laryngeal theory . The Anatolian languages have also spurred a major re-evaluation of theories concerning the development of various shared Indo-European language features and the extent to which these features were present in PIE itself. PIE is thought to have had a complex system of morphology that included inflections (suffixing of roots, as in who, whom, whose ), and ablaut (vowel alterations, as in sing, sang, sung ). Nouns used

1705-745: The 3rd millennium BCE Yamnaya migrations into the Danube Valley, while Proto-Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic may have developed east of the Carpathian Mountains , in present-day Ukraine , moving north and spreading with the Corded Ware culture in Middle Europe (third millennium BCE). The Proto-Indo-Iranian language and culture probably emerged within the Sintashta culture ( c.  2100 –1800 BCE), at

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1760-800: The Indo-European language group. Using a mathematical analysis borrowed from evolutionary biology, but basing their work on comparative vocabulary, a number of researchers have attempted to estimate the dates of the splitting up of the various Indo-European languages. According to the latest study by Kassian et al. (2021), Hittite was the earliest language to split off from the rest, around 4139–3450 BC, followed by Tocharian around 3727–2262 BC. Subsequently Indo-European split into four branches ca. 3357–2162 BC: (1) Greek-Armenian, (2) Albanian, (3) Italic-Germanic-Celtic, (4) Balto-Slavic–Indo-Iranian. Balto-Slavic split from Indo-Iranian around 2723–1790 BC, Italic-Germanic-Celtic broke up around 2655–1537 BC, and Indo-Iranian split up around 2044–1458 BC. The position of Albanian

1815-482: The Indo-Hittite hypothesis is not widely accepted, and there is little to suggest that it is possible to reconstruct a Proto-Indo-Hittite stage that differs substantially from what is already reconstructed for PIE. Frederik Kortlandt postulates a shared common ancestor of Indo-European and Uralic, Proto-Indo-Uralic , as a possible pre-PIE. According to Kortlandt, "Indo-European is a branch of Indo-Uralic which

1870-569: The North Adriatic region are sometimes classified as Italic. Albanian and Greek are the only surviving Indo-European descendants of a Paleo-Balkan language area, named for their occurrence in or in the vicinity of the Balkan peninsula . Most of the other languages of this area—including Illyrian , Thracian , and Dacian —do not appear to be members of any other subfamilies of PIE, but are so poorly attested that proper classification of them

1925-527: The Pontic–Caspian steppe and into eastern Europe. Other theories include the Anatolian hypothesis , which posits that PIE spread out from Anatolia with agriculture beginning c. 7500–6000 BCE, the Armenian hypothesis , the Paleolithic continuity paradigm , and the indigenous Aryans theory. The last two of these theories are not regarded as credible within academia. Out of all the theories for

1980-526: The Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Kartvelian languages due to early language contact , as well as some morphological similarities—notably the Indo-European ablaut , which is remarkably similar to the root ablaut system reconstructible for Proto-Kartvelian. The Lusitanian language was a marginally attested language spoken in areas near the border between present-day Portugal and Spain . The Venetic and Liburnian languages known from

2035-465: The Wondreb are: For 0.5 km (0.3 mi), the river flows through the territory of Stará Voda , then it forms the Czech-German border for the next 0.5 km. The river further flows through the territories of Mähring , Tirschenreuth , Leonberg , Mitterteich and Waldsassen in Germany, before it forms the Czech-German border for the next 0.7 km (0.4 mi). Then the river continues through

2090-745: The Yamna-horizon at the Pontic steppe, while the time-range of several Asian cultures also coincides with the proposed trajectory and time-range of the Indo-European migrations. According to the widely accepted Kurgan hypothesis or Steppe theory , the Indo-European language and culture spread in several stages from the Proto-Indo-European Urheimat in the Eurasian Pontic steppes into Western Europe , Central and South Asia , through folk migrations and so-called elite recruitment. This process started with

2145-602: The common origin of Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, and German. In 1833, he began publishing the Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend , Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavic, Gothic, and German . In 1822, Jacob Grimm formulated what became known as Grimm's law as a general rule in his Deutsche Grammatik . Grimm showed correlations between the Germanic and other Indo-European languages and demonstrated that sound change systematically transforms all words of

2200-598: The date for the Balto-Slavic–Indo-Iranian break-up may be correlated with the end of Corded Ware culture around 2100 or 2000 BC; and the date for Indo-Iranian corresponds to that of the Sintashta archaeological culture, frequently associated with Proto-Indo-Iranian speakers. Archaeological research has unearthed a broad range of historical cultures that can be related to the spread of the Indo-European languages. Various steppe-cultures show strong similarities with

2255-457: The derived Indo-European languages , which took place from around 4000 to 1000 BCE, potentially explaining how these related languages came to be spoken across a large area of Eurasia spanning from the Indian subcontinent and Iranian plateau to Atlantic Europe , in a process of cultural diffusion . While these early languages and their speakers are prehistoric (lacking documentary evidence),

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2310-633: The eastern Pontic steppe. The late PIE culture, within the Yamnaya horizon on the Pontic–Caspian steppe around 3000 BCE, then branched to produce the bulk of the Indo-European languages through migrations to the west and southeast. Albanian , Greek , and other Paleo-Balkan languages had their formative core in the Balkans after the Indo-European migrations in the region. Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic may have developed from Indo-European languages coming from Central Europe to Western Europe after

2365-664: The eastern border of the Abashevo culture , which in turn developed from the Corded Ware-related Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture . The Sintashta culture grew into the Andronovo culture ( c.  1900 –800 BCE), the two first phases being the Fedorovo Andronovo culture ( c.  1900 –1400 BCE) and Alakul Andronovo culture ( c.  1800 –1500 BCE). Indo-Aryans moved into

2420-582: The effects of hypothetical sounds which no longer exist in all languages documented prior to the excavation of cuneiform tablets in Anatolian. This theory was first proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure in 1879 on the basis of internal reconstruction only, and progressively won general acceptance after Jerzy Kuryłowicz 's discovery of consonantal reflexes of these reconstructed sounds in Hittite. Julius Pokorny 's Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch ('Indo-European Etymological Dictionary', 1959) gave

2475-487: The introduction of cattle at the Eurasian steppes around 5200 BCE, and the mobilisation of the steppe herder cultures with the introduction of wheeled wagons and horse-back riding, which led to a new kind of culture. Between 4500 and 2500 BCE, this " horizon ", which includes several distinctive cultures culminating in the Yamnaya culture , spread out over the Pontic steppes, and outside into Europe and Asia. Anthony regards

2530-575: The kinship groups involved in this movement. According to the widely held Kurgan hypothesis , or renewed Steppe hypothesis, the oldest Indo-European migration split from the earliest proto-Indo-European speech community (archaic PIE) inhabiting the Volga basin, and produced the Anatolian languages ( Hittite and Luwian ). The second-oldest branch, Tocharian , was spoken in the Tarim Basin (now western China ), after splitting from early PIE spoken on

2585-654: The main Indo-European language families, comprising the languages descended from Proto-Indo-European. Slavic: Russian , Ukrainian , Belarusian , Polish , Czech , Slovak , Sorbian , Serbo-Croatian , Bulgarian , Slovenian , Macedonian , Kashubian , Rusyn Iranic: Persian , Pashto , Balochi , Kurdish , Zaza , Ossetian , Luri , Talyshi , Tati , Gilaki , Mazandarani , Semnani , Yaghnobi ; Nuristani Commonly proposed subgroups of Indo-European languages include Italo-Celtic , Graeco-Aryan , Graeco-Armenian , Graeco-Phrygian , Daco-Thracian , and Thraco-Illyrian . There are numerous lexical similarities between

2640-480: The most popular. It proposes that the original speakers of PIE were the Yamnaya culture associated with the kurgans (burial mounds) on the Pontic–Caspian steppe north of the Black Sea. According to the theory, they were nomadic pastoralists who domesticated the horse , which allowed them to migrate across Europe and Asia in wagons and chariots. By the early 3rd millennium BCE, they had expanded throughout

2695-426: The proto-Indo-European language. By the early 1900s, Indo-Europeanists had developed well-defined descriptions of PIE which scholars still accept today. Later, the discovery of the Anatolian and Tocharian languages added to the corpus of descendant languages. A subtle new principle won wide acceptance: the laryngeal theory , which explained irregularities in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European phonology as

2750-467: The reconstruction of ancestral speech (see Indo-European studies ). Archaeology traces the spread of artifacts, habitations, and burial sites presumed to be created by speakers of Proto-Indo-European in several stages, from their hypothesized Proto-Indo-European homeland to their diaspora throughout Western Europe, Central Asian, and South Asia, with incursions into East Asia. Recent genetic research, including paleogenetics , has increasingly delineated

2805-428: The regional dialects of Proto-Indo-European spoken by the various groups diverged, as each dialect underwent shifts in pronunciation (the Indo-European sound laws ), morphology, and vocabulary. Over many centuries, these dialects transformed into the known ancient Indo-European languages. From there, further linguistic divergence led to the evolution of their current descendants, the modern Indo-European languages. PIE

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2860-730: The set of correspondences in his prize essay Undersøgelse om det gamle Nordiske eller Islandske Sprogs Oprindelse ('Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language'), where he argued that Old Norse was related to the Germanic languages, and had even suggested a relation to the Baltic, Slavic, Greek, Latin and Romance languages. In 1816, Franz Bopp published On the System of Conjugation in Sanskrit , in which he investigated

2915-400: The steppe zone. According to Anthony, the following terminology may be used: The Anatolian languages are the first Indo-European language family to have split off from the main group. Due to the archaic elements preserved in the now extinct Anatolian languages, they may be a "cousin" of Proto-Indo-European, instead of a "daughter", but Anatolian is generally regarded as an early offshoot of

2970-817: The territories of Cheb and Odrava in the Czech Republic. A significant body of water built on the Wondreb is Jesenice Reservoir, located in the territory of Cheb. It was built in 1957–1961 on an area of 7.6 km (2.9 sq mi). The main purposes are to ensure minimum flow for industrial enterprises and flood protection. Proto-Indo-European language 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 Proto-Indo-European ( PIE )

3025-584: Was radically transformed under the influence of a North Caucasian substratum when its speakers moved from the area north of the Caspian Sea to the area north of the Black Sea." Proto-Finno-Ugric and PIE have a lexicon in common, generally related to trade, such as words for "price" and "draw, lead". Similarly, "sell" and "wash" were borrowed in Proto-Ugric . Although some have proposed a common ancestor (the hypothetical Nostratic macrofamily ), this

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