Download Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney PDF
Key ideas from the book
- Proto-Indo-European is the ancestor of a large family of languages spoken across Europe and Asia.
- The book traces the language family's spread from a region between Europe and Asia.
- Routes across the steppe, the Caucasus, the Silk Roads and the Hindu Kush feature in this account.
- Ancient peoples, including nomads and monks, warriors and kings, carried languages across wide distances.
- Linguists, archaeologists and geneticists use different kinds of evidence to investigate the lost language and its speakers.
- The language's descendants appear in literary works including the Rig Veda, Dante's Inferno and Rumi's love poetry.
About Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney
Proto-Indo-European is no longer spoken, but its descendants include languages as varied as English, Sanskrit, Armenian, Lithuanian, French, Persian and Polish. Laura Spinney traces how this ancient language, spoken as the last ice age receded, spread from its homeland between Europe and Asia and developed into a far-reaching language family.
Following routes across the steppe, the Caucasus, the Silk Roads and the Hindu Kush, Spinney considers the ancient peoples who carried these languages across continents. She also meets modern linguists, archaeologists and geneticists working to reconstruct the language and learn about its speakers. This history will interest readers curious about language, migration and the methods used to investigate the distant past.
Broken link? Report a download problem
Thank you, we received your report and will check the file.
No reviews yet, be the first to review this book.