The Indo-Europeans: Who Were They?

 

After the Enlightenment began in earnest, scholars began to take note of the similarities between many European languages. These were not that noteworthy when they appeared between languages such as Italian and Spanish. After all, both languages were derived from Latin. Yet there are similarities between other languages in Europe, such as Latin and German.

Such similarities might be considered surprising because the Germans are the ancestors of barbarian invaders that were new to the European continent thousands of years ago. It was much more surprising in the 18^th century when Sir William Jones, an English scholar, noted strong resemblances between Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, and classical Greek and Latin. Never had two languages from such disparate regions demonstrated these affinities.

The Theory

Since Jones’ discovery, there has been repeated confirmation of the relationship between many languages found between Spain and India. These languages obviously all had a common ancestor. This was shocking to many who had never considered there to be any remarkable similarities between the cultures underlying these languages. A closer look revealed numerous ways in which the culture of ancient India matched that of Greece and Rome.

For instance, all these cultures focused their religion on a god that lived in the sky. In Sanskrit, he was called Dyaus-Pitar, which literally translates to mean Sky-Father. The word pitar means father in Sanskrit. In Latin and in ancient Greek, it is the shockingly similar pater. The Latin term for their chief god was Jupiter, which could easily be construed as a corruption of the Sanskrit term for the same god.

But the similarities went far beyond a few vocabulary choices. The very structures of the languages bear great similarity, as do the cultures.

By looking at the similarities in the languages and cultures that remain spread out over Europe and Western Asia, certain scholars have suggested that there were once a particular people, known for this purpose as the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who inhabited some region of this area six or even seven thousand years ago. They then spread out and conquered the original cultures of these areas. While many of these conquests remain mysterious, the Aryan invasion of northern India is believed to be one example of this Indo-European expansion.

The Indo-European languages do not agree with regard to every possible word in their respective languages. However, they do agree on a considerable body of terminology. Scholars suspect that the original culture would have at least possessed all the nouns and used all the verbs that remain similar in the existing languages. Therefore, the original tribe or culture would have lived where there was winter snow, used wheels, worshipped a sky god and possessed domesticated cattle as well as dogs.                                                                                                  

Where Did They Come From?

Theories abound as to their original homeland. Some place it closer to modern day India while others try to locate it closer to the Black Sea. From wherever they started, these Indo-Europeans spread out for unknown reasons in different directions and without maintaining any political coherency.