Proto
How One Ancient Language Went Global
Laura Spinney . 2025 . Aloha Lib 417.7 SPINNEY Laura
- 282 pages text/illustration, 22 pages bibliography, 21 pages end notes, 16 pages index
- the index is essential though incomplete; Spinney reintroduces nouns and placenames 200 pages after a first appearance
- This book is about the evolution of language and the migration of languages/cultures
Maps
p4-5 The Peak of the Last Ice Age, 20 KY ago, Mercator 75W to "195E", 70S to 80N
- ice sheets, lower sea level, land bridges Asia to North America, Europe to Britain/Island
p33-34 Lingua Obscura, undated, 31E to 40E, 20N to 49N
p60-61 Proto-Indo-European, undated, 9W to 88E, 8N to 64N, migration of Yamnaya to Britain, Spain, Denmark, India, Altai mountains though the Eurasian Steppe
p90-91 Anatolian, undated, 4E to 41E, 32N to 42N
p118-119 Tocharian, undated, 66E to 97E, ? ?
p142-143 Celtic, Germanic, and Italic, 500BC
p180-181 Indo-Iranian
p210-211 Baltic and Slavic
p234-235 Albanian, Armenian, Greek
p256-257 The Indo-European Speaking-World Today almost everywhere besides Africa, Arabia, Mongolia, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia
- p07 5kya, Proto-Indo-European "exploded out of Black Sea cradle" eastward westward, Ireland to India
- p09 300kya, Homo sapiens arose in Africa, vocal tracts, cognition
- p09 60kya, Homo sapiens walked out of Africa with tools and speech
- p10 14kya, glaciers recede
- p10 human population 10M, 10k spoken languages, ~1k each
p10 vertical bilingualism people higher up with their own language also learn the language lower down, perhaps for marketing (reason not mentioned by Spinney)
- p11 Official languages grew, 1M speakers 5kya
- p12 writing emerged 6000 YA, confusing 30 minutes to midnight clock analogy
p13 Dante Divine Comedy Tuscan dialect became standard literary language of western Europe for 200 years
- p18 Enlightenment scholars searched for non-biblical birthplace of Indo-European
p19 Max Weinrich 1894-1969 A language is a dialect with an army and a navy
- p20 dead languages studied with linguistics, archaeology and genetics
p22 Jacob GrimmGrimm's Law word sound in one language predicably changes to a different sound in another language
- p28 cheap/fast DNA sequencing major expansion of unwritten history
p29 anthropologist James C. Scott called infectious disease the 'loudest silence' in the archaeological record
p29 Scythian is pronounced SI-thee-uhn
p30 Woman wearing a niqab told to speak English in the UK ... they were in Wales, and she was speaking Welsh to her son
p37 Wels catfish in the Dnieper up to 2.5 meters and 300 kg ... same German root (wal) as whale
- p39 4500 BCE, descendants of Anatolian farmers spread west to Ireland and east to Ukraine
p40 Kuma-Manych Depression NW of Caspian
p41 Varna Lake east of Blask Sea
p42 Copper near Varna, the Chalcolithic Age or Copper Age following Neolithic and preceding bronze age
p43 Hamangia
p45 4600 BC azurite and malachite kilned with charcoal to 800C, bled out copper beads
p46 Varna copper in graves at Khvalynsk 2000 km to the northeast
p47 Fisherfolk at Sinop say the Black Sea has only 3 safe harbors: July, August, and Sinop
p48 steppe cemeteries shrank, dead buried singly, some under small Kurgan mounds
p51 Pontic seaboard
p52 Tell Karanovo grew 12 meters high, from 7th to 2nd millenia BC
p59 Yamnaya herders
p65 Early 1990s collapse of Russia Kalmyks revert from motorbikes to horseback
p66 transhumance migration of livestock between winter and summer pastures
- p66 perekati-pole (tumbleweed) nomads
- p69 Yamnaya means pit grave in Russian
- p69 fewer than 100 people spoke the dialect that evolved into all extant Indo-European languages
- p71 lactose-intolerant Yamnaya consumed fermented milk
p72 Janet Jones: horse and rider up to 70 km/hr
- 2020 "Horse Brain, Human Brain" book
p72 Equus caballus horse, originating west of the Urals
- p73 tebenevka: winter grazing by horses break up deeper snow so cows can graze
p74 Yamnaya horses may have resembled Przewalski's wild horse - short legged and stocky
p75 Greek and Latin areinflected languages, nouns modified to reflect role in sentence.
- English is analytic language, role conveyed with word order and adjectives
p81 Grimm's Law
p81 *pek'u root of pecuniary, fee, and feudal
p82 *ghostis guest friendship,
- p83 Indo-European lords and guests sipped mead or smoked cannabis
p84 myth of Trito legitimized cattle raiding
- steal cattle because "only we know how to sacrifice them properly"
p85 age set teen age sons did most of the cattle raiding
- p100 Languages split and evolve in 500 to 1000 years
p117 Hittite language replaced by Luwian language between 2000BC and 1000BC
p125 Chinese banned export of silkworms and mulberry trees, king of Khotan married Chinese princess, who smuggled them out so she would be kept in silk
p127 Centum and satem languages Latin uses centum for "hundred", Avestan uses satem
- p134 Afghans and Europeans shared ancestors, pre-Europeans moved west, contrary to century of stupid stereotyping
p146 boustrophedon "ox turning" script written alternately from left to right or right to left. ( Reverse boustrophedon writes reverse line upside down ).
p146 Irish 4th century alphabet Ogam matches letters to sounds exceptionally well.
p147 Poetic Edda Norse mythology
p149 Iron Gates gorge of the Danube
p150 Corded Ware culture named after pottery "decorations", 3000 BC to 2350 BC, region approximately west of France, north to Norway, east to Russian Samara region
- I'd bet those "decorations" kept pots from slipping out of wet hands
p151 Bell Beaker Culture (from German Glockenbecher )
- probably also kept pots from slipping, perhaps easier to clean and less likely to stress and fracture
p153 overbite more common, helps make "f" and "v" sounds
- p154 some linguists say place and river names indicate where ancient languages were spoken
p156 Vercingetorix Gallic king led failed revolt against Rome in 52 BC
- p156 loan words from neolithic natives: lark, blackbird(???), turnip
- p156 sylvestrian beekeeping in hollowed tree or log
p157 Erzegebirge ore mountains where tin and copper occur together
p158 Venetic language ~20,000 km2 region north of Adriatic
- p161 Europe already densely populated when Indo-Europeans arrived, Spinney speculates they brought plague, but were more immune to it
mangled explanation; Philipp W. Stockhammer indexed for page 166 but isn't there
- p169 perhaps Indo-Europeans good at having children and keeping them alive
- gradual genetic replacement by hardier Indo-Europeans ?
- p177 Old Norse and Old English close enough for basic communication
p177 Vikings were "north men", Nor*menn corrupted to Norman
p178 Irish slaver colonies on Scotland and Isle of Man -> Scots Gaelic and Manx
- p179 English replaced Irish, now a minority language in Ireland
p183 India ashvamedha horse sacrifice
- p184 archaeological origin in Russian steppe?
- p184 Indo-Iranian branch a billion people in south and southwest Asia
- p192 steppes overgrazing evidence evidenced by soil over burial mounds
p192 longue duree pretentious wording
- p193 back-migrating herders (?) became metalworkers
p193 Sinashta homes were workshps
p194 domesticated Equus caballus horses from Central Asia
p195 Proto-Indo-Iranian language of herders not cultivators
p196 Sebastião Salgado "Once they have touched gold, nobody ever comes back"
p196 Kargaly Mines ores made bronze, bronze roads dwarfed the later Silk Roads
p197 Andronovo
p200 haoma
p201 Indo-European story beaten to fit a political mold: British colonialists, then Nazis, then Out of India
p202 Indian scholars insist Vedas are collections of myths, not history
p202 Harappan DNA poorly preserved, but not connected to the steppe
- p203 no bilingual Harappan equivalent to the Rosetta Stone, hence no decipering of Harappan script
p205 retroflex consonant rolling tongue back in mouth
p206 Gundestrup caldron
- p213 Baltic languages: Latvian and Lithuanian . Uralic languages: Estonian and Finnish
p214 Anthony Jakob: Lithuanian modern but seems archaic because it ends nouns with s
p217 ruki rule Proto-Indo-European "s" becomes "sh" after r, u, k, or i
p221 Frankish king Kar(a)l corrupted to Charlemagne
- p221 open syllable ends with a vowel, closed syllable ends with a consonant
- p222 people don't even hear combinations that are forbidden in their native language, but the nearest pairing that's allowed
p223 Thessaloniki
p225 Old Prussian a Baltic language, not German dialect
p227 ship-pound Baltic measure roughlt 300 to 400 pounds
p227 East Slavic forerunner of modern Russian
- p228 Rus referred to Orthodox Eastern Slavs
p228 ashvamedha horse sacrifice
- p239 Lithuania last pagan nation in Europe, joined Western Church (Vatican Catholic?) in 1387 (Martin Luther theses 1517)
p230 Smok
p230 Tolkien said Esperanto deader than ancient languages becuase there are no Esperanto legends
- p231 Hindi godhā (cow suckler)
- p237 Greece "same wave of calamity that claimed the Hittites" ... WHICH calamity?
- p238 "Greece borrowed an alphabet from the speakers of a Semitic language" ... WHICH language?
p241 Albanian documented(?) in 1462
p246 Herodotus father of history ... father of lies?
p274 2008 French movie Welcome to the Sticks
p275 Language is becoming a battleground in the identity wars, and preserving our linguistic 'purity' a justification used by those who want to raise walls. Unfortunately for them, the most successful language the world ever knew was a hybrid trafficked by migrants. It changed as it went, and when it stopped changing, it died.
- The past is a lighthouse, not a port. (Russian proverb)
p308 Chapter 1 note 9: Polari language offshoot of Lingua Franca secret language of gay community when homosexuality was illegal