Proto-Indo-European and Language Spread

What people are known as the Indo-Europeans?

Which language is thought to be the closest to the ancient Indo-European language?

Indo-European languages are only spoken in Europe.

What is the hypothetical language from which Indo-European languages are believed to derive?

What was the probable original homeland of the Indo-European speakers?

The earliest possible end of Proto-Indo-European linguistic unity is believed to be around ______ BCE.

Which of the following languages is NOT descended from the Indo-European family?

The Proto-Indo-European language developed a writing system.

What methods do linguists use to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European?

Match the following Indo-European language branches with their main locations:

Proto-Indo-European

The English language is part of the large Indo-European language family.
The root of the Indo-European family is traced to the people known as the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were a Neolithic people who lived in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
They lived between 5000 BC and 3400 BCE, though various theories suggest a range between the 7th and the 3rd millennium BC.
The earliest writings attributed to this period come from Sumeria and were created around 3000 BC.
Modern linguists have used the "comparative method" to study the Indo-European languages and reconstruct the original language.
Some scholars believe that modern Lithuanian may be the closest language to the original Proto-Indo-European.

Spread of Indo-European Languages

Between 3500 BC and 2500 BC, the Proto-Indo-Europeans began to spread across Europe and Asia, searching for new resources.
This migration caused the Proto-Indo-European language to split into various different languages and language groups.
The main branches of this language family are: Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Greek, Armenian, Italic, Tocharian, Celtic, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and Albanian.

Anatolian

This branch of languages was prevalent in Asia Minor, specifically Turkey and northern Syria.
Hittite is the most famous of these languages.
The language was discovered in Turkey in 1906 CE, with many cuneiform tablets and fragments found in a royal archive.
These texts date back to the mid to late second millennium BCE.

This quiz explores the Proto-Indo-European language and its historical significance as a root of the Indo-European language family. It examines the origins of these ancient people, their migrations, and the comparative method used by linguists to study their language. Test your knowledge on this foundational topic in linguistics.