The Birth of Indo-European
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
From the steppes of prehistoric Eurasia to the languages we speak today, the story of Indo-European is one of ancient roots and global impact. But what exactly is Indo-European? Who spoke it? And how did a single language family come to dominate nearly half the world?
In this episode, Tristan Hughes is joined by Laura Spinney to uncover the origins of Proto-Indo-European. From Sanskrit to Latin, mythological echoes to linguistic detective work, discover how archaeology, genetics and early literature help trace this lost language and the diverse prehistoric peoples who once spoke it.
Presented by Tristan Hughes. The producer is Joseph Knight, audio editor is Aidan Lonergan. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.
All music from Epidemic Sounds
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. |
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| 0:24.9 | On average, we will spend 80,000 hours at work. |
| 0:29.2 | Yet, around 25% of workers think their own job |
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| 0:50.2 | available in bookshops and audiobook now. |
| 1:09.0 | Music available in bookshops and audiobook now. It's The Ancense on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Today we're exploring |
| 1:15.2 | the very intriguing topic that is the birth of Indo-European languages. Long before the beginning |
| 1:22.1 | of writing, there was a connection between the prehistoric East and West, a connection established through |
| 1:28.3 | their languages. Because ancient languages that varied from Celtic to Latin to Sanskrit |
| 1:35.0 | shared the same complex language family tree. It's known as Indo-European. |
| 1:42.7 | Most fascinating of all is the common ancestor ancient language that they presumably all are derived from thousands of years ago, |
| 1:50.0 | a mysterious language that is labelled as proto-Indo-European. |
| 1:55.0 | This origin story is what we're going to explore today. |
| 1:59.0 | Now this is a field that mixes together linguistics, |
| 2:03.1 | archaeology and DNA, and it's a tale that features various prehistoric peoples that lived |
... |
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