Languages

[ila]

Previously I had posted that European languages derived from Sanskrit. I based this comment on what I remembered from English classes during my high school years. I have recently gone back through some of my reference books to do some research on the origin of English.

European languages did not have Sanskrit as a common source. Rather Sanskrit and the European languages have a common source known as "Indo-European". There is some controversy over where the original speakers of "Indo-European" lived. Some have argued that the original speakers were the Kurgan culture of the Russian steppes. Others have suggested the origin is from a farming culture of the Danube valley. The currently accepted theory is that the language comes from a people who lived in a cold, northern climate. The dates of origin vary from 6000 BC to 4500 BC. Words for snow, beech, bee, and wolf had an important role in this language. Also the prehistoric "Indo-European" language didn't have a word for sea. For these reasons scholars have placed the origin of the "Indo-Europeans" in northern Central Europe.

Source
The Story of English
Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil
Viking Penguin Incorporated
First American edition published 1986
Pages 51 - 53