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Laura Spinney, "Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
English. French. Italian. Hindi. Greek. Russian. All these different languages can trace their roots to the same origin: Proto-Indo-European, spoken in 4000 BC in the steppe that crosses from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. Whether by migration, diffusion or conquest, the Indo-European languages spread west across Europe, east across Central Asia, and southeast towards India.
Laura Spinney writes about Proto-Indo-European—which never existed in a written form—and its many descendants in her latest book Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global (William Collins / Bloomsbury: 2025).
Laura…
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