Indo-European languages

A language family descended from Proto-Indo-European, spoken across much of Europe and parts of Asia and the Americas. Its branches include Germanic, Indo-Iranian, Romance, and Greek.

Proto-Indo-European language: The reconstructed prehistoric ancestor of the Indo-European languages. It is the common ancestor inferred from similarities across the family.
Grimm's law: A set of regular consonant shifts distinguishing Proto-Germanic from other Indo-European languages. It is a clear example of a sound change defining one branch.
Proto-Indo-European homeland: The proposed geographic region where Proto-Indo-European was spoken before its branches dispersed. Its location frames accounts of the family’s earliest expansion.
Indo-Iranian languages: A major Indo-European branch containing the Iranian and Indo-Aryan language groups. It links languages such as Persian and Hindi through a shared branch.
Indo-European language classification: The grouping of Indo-European languages into branches based on shared historical innovations. Some branch relationships remain disputed because evidence is incomplete or uneven.
Comparative method: A method for reconstructing ancestral languages by comparing systematic similarities among related languages. It supplies the evidence for reconstructing Proto-Indo-European and family relationships.
Verner's law: A historical sound rule explaining exceptions to Grimm's law through earlier accent placement. It shows how reconstruction can explain irregular-looking Germanic consonants.
Kurgan hypothesis: The hypothesis that Proto-Indo-European originated among Pontic-Caspian steppe pastoralists. It is the leading archaeological model linking early expansion to steppe mobility.
Germanic languages: An Indo-European branch that includes English, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages. It traces English to one of the family’s major branches.
Indo-European language dispersal: The prehistoric spread of Indo-European languages across Eurasia and beyond. Its timing and routes are debated across linguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence.

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