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.

We know this word came from Celtic because, of the three branches, only Celtic converted the ē in Proto-Indo-European h3rēg’s to an ī (the Italic branch kept the ē, as in Latin rēx).

Michael Rosen hears the fascinating story of the origin of all Indo-European languages from author Laura Spinney. Today, nearly half of humanity speaks an Indo-European language. Show more Michael ...

In “Proto,” Laura Spinney details the centurieslong effort to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European (PIE), what linguists believe to be the mother tongue of a diverse constellation of languages from ...

The world’s languages were not a babel but a brotherhood. “Proto”, a new book by Laura Spinney, a journalist who has written for this newspaper, offers a biography of that brotherhood—or ...

The Economist's Rob Russo, Le Devoir's Emilie Nicolas and The Hub's Sean Speer join Chattopadhyay for one final round of our Sunday Election Panel to recap the results of the federal race and ...

Indo-European became the world’s largest language family For centuries, scholars have searched for the original homeland of the Indo-European languages. Mallory documents 176 individuals who proposed ...

Indo-European languages form the largest family, if those who speak them as a second language are included — with 12 main branches ranging historically from northwestern China to western Europe.

Laura Spinney’s Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global attempts to chart the story of the Indo-European languages and the people who spoke them. These languages, which include English, Latin, ...

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 ...

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.