Tracing the Indo-Europeans

Tracing the Indo-Europeans
Author: Birgit Anette Olsen
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2019-08-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789252717

Recent developments in aDNA has reshaped our understanding of later European prehistory, and at the same time also opened up for more fruitful collaborations between archaeologists and historical linguists. Two revolutionary genetic studies, published independently in Nature, 2015, showed that prehistoric Europe underwent two successive waves of migration, one from Anatolia consistent with the introduction of agriculture, and a later influx from the Pontic-Caspian steppes which without any reasonable doubt pinpoints the archaeological Yamnaya complex as the cradle of (Core-)Indo-European languages. Now, for the first time, when the preliminaries are clear, it is possible for the fields of genetics, archaeology and historical linguistics to cooperate in a constructive fashion to refine our knowledge of the Indo-European homeland, migrations, society and language. For the historical-comparative linguists, this opens up a wealth of exciting perspectives and new working fields in the intersections between linguistics and neighbouring disciplines, for the archaeologists and geneticists, on the other hand, the linguistic contributions help to endow the material findings with a voice from the past. The present selection of papers illustrate the importance of an open interdisciplinary discussion which will gradually help us in our quest of Tracing the Indo-Europeans.

The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World

The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World
Author: J. P. Mallory
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 756
Release: 2006-08-24
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0199287910

The authors introduce Proto-Indo-European describing its construction and revealing the people who spoke it between 5,500 and 8,000 years ago. Using archaeological evidence and natural history they reconstruct the lives, passions, culture, society and mythology of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Indo-European and Indo-Europeans

Indo-European and Indo-Europeans
Author: George Cardona
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2016-11-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1512801208

Twenty-two internationally known linguists, anthropologists, and archaeologists discuss such questions as the original home of the Indo-Europeans, their migration, religiomythic beliefs, and legal customs in the most comprehensive treatment of Indo-European culture in recent times.

Comparative Indo-European Linguistics

Comparative Indo-European Linguistics
Author: Robert S.P. Beekes
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2011-10-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027285004

This book gives a comprehensive introduction to Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. It starts with a presentation of the languages of the family (from English and the other Germanic languages, the Celtic and Slavic languages, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit through Armenian and Albanian) and a discussion of the culture and origin of the Indo-Europeans, the speakers of the Indo-European proto-language.The reader is introduced into the nature of language change and the methods of reconstruction of older language stages, with many examples (from the Indo-European languages). A full description is given of the sound changes, which makes it possible to follow the origin of the different Indo-European languages step by step. This is followed by a discussion of the development of all the morphological categories of Proto-Indo-European. The book presents the latest in scholarly insights, like the laryngeal and glottalic theory, the accentuation, the ablaut patterns, and these are systematically integrated into the treatment. The text of this second edition has been corrected and updated by Michiel de Vaan. Sixty-six new exercises enable the student to practice the reconstruction of PIE phonology and morphology.

Militarism and the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe

Militarism and the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe
Author: Robert Drews
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2017-05-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351982427

This book contends that Indo-European languages came to Greece, central Europe, southern Scandinavia and northern Italy no earlier than ca. 1600 BC, brought by the first military men whom Europeans had seen. That the Greek, Keltic, Italic and Germanic sub-groups of Indo-European originated in the middle of the second millennium BC is a controversial idea. Most Indo-Europeanists date the origin a thousand years earlier, and some archaeologists would place it before 5000 BC, as agriculture spread through Europe. Here Robert Drews argues that the Indo-European languages came into Europe via military conquests, and that militarism – a man’s pride in his weapons and in his status as a warrior - began with the employment of horse-drawn chariots in battle.

Archaeology and Language

Archaeology and Language
Author: Colin Renfrew
Publisher: CUP Archive
Total Pages: 372
Release: 1990-01-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521386753

In this book Colin Renfrew directs remarkable new light on the links between archaeology and language, looking specifically at the puzzling similarities that are apparent across the Indo-European family of ancient languages, from Anatolia and Ancient Persia, across Europe and the Indian subcontinent, to regions as remote as Sinkiang in China. Professor Renfrew initiates an original synthesis between modern historical linguistics and the new archaeology of cultural process, boldly proclaiming that it is time to reconsider questions of language origins and what they imply about ethnic affiliation--issues seriously discredited by the racial theorists of the 1920s and 1930s and, as a result, largely neglected since. Challenging many familiar beliefs, he comes to a new and persuasive conclusion: that primitive forms of the Indo-European language were spoken across Europe some thousands of years earlier than has previously been assumed.