The Indo-European Language
by KS84 · 14 things on NewTwos
- Source
- William Jones was a renowned linguistics expert in 18th century India who discovered the connection between Sanskrit and European languages.
- According to legend he went to great lengths and hardships to learn Sanskrit.
- The phenomenon of linguistic shift is named after the brothers Grimm as they identified various shifts on a large scale. For example, the shift from “p” to “f”, which gave rise to pen and feather from the root Latin word.
- This also explains why languages often have so many different words meaning the same thing. They arrive into the language from different routes after various linguistic shifts.
- An example of these shifts is the word “heart” from “kardia”.
- The linguistic shifts here mean sound shifts between languages.
- Indo Europeans likely lived in the Eurasia steppe.
- They mostly relied on cattle rather than farming and they had lots of words describing male relatives over female relatives, suggesting they were patriarchal.
- The Indo-Europeans had domesticated horses which allowed them to move around a lot more and reduce their reliance on sources of food and water being geographically near. This meant that they could spread far and wide.
- Lactose tolerance allowed the Indo-Europeans duration to become big and strong due to a healthier diet.
- Almost half the modern world speaks languages descended from the Indo-European language.
- Modern Persian and Afghan languages descended from Indo European.
- The languages of northern India and Persia were part of the Indo Iranian language family.