But researchers have struggled to agree on the origin story of this so-called proto-Indo-European language, says Paul Heggarty, who is now at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. There are ...

‘Proto’ Review: Ancient Speech, Carried Far Scholars believe a language used 5,000 years ago on the Asian steppe was the source of many of the world’s modern tongues. By Michael Patrick Brady ...

Around half of the world’s population speaks a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. Most know little about it. Share. Illustration: Ben Hickey. May 8th 2025 | 2 min read. Listen to this story ...

Laura Spinney’s “Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global” explores the roots of language and how it spread and changed across time and place.

Among the arresting things that Reich et al. argue is that we should speak of a precursor to Proto-Indo-European: Proto-Indo-Anatolian, which they believe split sometime between 4300 and 3500 B.C.

As the debate over the origins of Indo-European languages continues, one thing is clear: The story is far more complex — and far more fascinating — than anyone imagined.

Reich's lab has been pursuing proto-Indo-European speakers for more than 15 years. ... E-mail the story Landmark studies track source of Indo-European languages spoken by 40% of world.

Indo-European languages (IE), which number over 400 and include major groups such as Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Indo-Iranian, and Celtic, are spoken by nearly half the world's population today.

A new study claims to have identified the first speakers of Indo-European language, which gave rise to English, Sanskrit and hundreds of others. By Carl Zimmer In 1786, a British judge named ...

Harvard researchers traced the origins of the vast Indo-European language family to the Caucasus-Lower Volga region, identifying the ancestral population that gave rise to more than 400 languages ...