rekordowe-miejsca: Indo-European languages

Evidence: 65 • authority: 72

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European has been discovered; 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. The majority of linguistic work during 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…

Evidence: 42 • authority: 88

Religion. Abstract Approaches to the study of Indo-European religion and mythology differ substantially from those of the other semantic categories. There are several reasons for this difference. First, and obvious, is the paucity of terms for the names of deities reconstructable to Proto-Indo-European; with the exception of a few reconstructions that are found in almost any textbook, a number listed in Table 23.1 are of uncertain or, frankly, doubtful validity. Second, given the very nature of the subject—the ideological content of an ancient culture (here substituting ‘culture’ for ‘reconstructed proto-language’)—it has attracted far more attention than many other semantic categories.

Evidence: 42 • authority: 72

The Indo-European migrations are hypothesized migrations of peoples who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and the derived Indo-European languages, which took place from around 4000 to 1000 BCE, 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. While these early languages and their speakers are prehistoric (lacking documentary evidence), 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 o…

Evidence: 36 • authority: 72

The Proto-Indo-European homeland was the prehistoric homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), the region where the proto-language was spoken before it split into the dialects from which the earliest Indo-European languages later evolved with the Indo-European migrations. The Steppe theory, the Anatolian model, and the Near Eastern (or Armenian) model are the three main solutions for the Indo-European homeland, of which the Steppe theory is the most widely accepted proposal. The search for the homeland of the Indo-Europeans began during the late 18th century with the discovery of the Indo-European language family. The methods used to establish the homeland have been drawn from the…

Evidence: 36 • authority: 72

The Proto-Indo-Iranian peoples (or Indo-Iranian peoples, or Indo-Iranic peoples), also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of speakers of Proto-Indo-European languages who brought the offshoot Proto-Indo-Iranian languages to parts of Eurasia in waves from the first part of the 2nd millennium BC onwards. The original location of Indo-Iranians were thought to be north of modern-day Afghanistan, east of the Caspian Sea, in the area that is now Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. They eventually branched out into the Iranian peoples who migrated south and west, while the Indo-Aryan peoples migrated south and east.

Evidence: 36 • authority: 72

The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the north of the Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and Greater Iran, with additional native branches found in regions such as Armenia, parts of the southern Indian subcontinent (Sri Lanka and the Maldives), and even stretching as far as to mainland Southeast Asia (Rohingya language in Myanmar). Historically, Indo-European languages were also spoken in Anatolia and Northwestern China. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches, of which eight are still spoken: four by hundreds of millions of native speakers each (Indo-Iranian, Italic, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic), and four by fewer than fifteen million native speake…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The phonology of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) has been reconstructed by linguists, based on the similarities and differences among current and extinct Indo-European languages. Because PIE was not written, linguists must rely on the evidence of its earliest attested descendants, such as Hittite, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin, to reconstruct its phonology. The reconstruction of abstract units of PIE phonological systems (i.e. segments, or phonemes in traditional phonology) is mostly uncontroversial, although areas of dispute remain. Their phonetic interpretation is harder to establish; this pertains especially to the vowels, the so-called laryngeals, the palatal and plain velar…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Indo-European speakers lived in preliterate societies – scholars of comparative mythology have reconstructed details from inherited similarities in mythological concepts found in Indo-European languages, based on the assumption that parts of the Proto-Indo-Europeans' original belief systems survived in the daughter traditions. The Proto-Indo-European pantheon includes a number of securely reconstructed deities, which in various Indo-European traditions have cognate names (linguistic siblings from a common origin) an…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Proto-Indo-Iranian religion was the religion of the Indo-Iranian peoples and includes topics such as the mythology, legendry, folk tales, and folk beliefs of early Indo-Iranian culture. Reconstructed concepts include the universal force *Hṛta- (Sanskrit rta, Avestan asha), the sacred plant and drink *sawHma- (Sanskrit Soma, Avestan Haoma) and gods of social order such as *mitra- (Sanskrit Mitra, Avestan and Old Persian Mithra, Miϑra) and *bʰaga- (Sanskrit Bhaga, Avestan and Old Persian Baga). Proto-Indo-Iranian religion is an archaic offshoot of Indo-European religion.

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Proto-Indo-European society is the reconstructed culture of Proto-Indo-Europeans, the ancient speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, ancestor of all modern Indo-European languages. Historical linguistics combined with archaeological and genetic evidence have provided the current basis for understanding the culture and its people. The most widely accepted theory suggests that the culture emerged on the Pontic–Caspian steppe after 5000 BCE, a period known as the Chalcolithic, where smelted copper and stone tools were in use simultaneously. Proto-Indo-European speakers are considered to have been semi-nomadic, but domestication of cattle, first for ritual sacrifice and later for consump…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a postulated prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from that linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics. The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the Late Neolithic to Chalcolithic (6400 to 3500 BC). Mainstream scholars place them in the Pontic–Caspian steppe across Eurasia (this steppe extends from northeastern Bulgaria and southeastern Romania, through Moldova, and southern and eastern Ukraine, through the Northern Caucasus of southern Russia, and into the Lower…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Proto-Indo-Iranian, also called Proto-Indo-Iranic or Proto-Aryan, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium BCE, and are often connected with the Sintashta culture of the Eurasian Steppe and the early Andronovo archaeological horizon. Proto-Indo-Iranian was a satem language, likely removed less than a millennium from its ancestor, the late Proto-Indo-European language, and in turn removed less than a millennium from its descendants: Vedic Sanskrit (of the Rigveda) and Old Avestan (of the Gathas). It is the ancestor of Indo-Aryan languages, the Irani…