By Michael Patrick Brady

Roughly five millennia ago, a small band of nomads set out from their homeland around the Black Sea. On the wide-open grasslands of the steppe, they honed their skills as horsemen and herders and worshiped a god they called Father Sky. They neither erected great landmarks nor penned any texts. Yet their legacy persists, hidden within the words of the languages spoken by more than three billion people today.

In "Proto," Laura Spinney details the centurieslong effort to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European $(PIE)$, what linguists believe to be the mother tongue of a diverse constellation of languages from Sanskrit to Gaelic. Ms. Spinney, a journalist whose previous book, "Pale Rider" (2017), charted the worldwide spread and cultural impact of the 1918 influenza epidemic, here demonstrates how the language of those humble, preliterate nomads radiated across the prehistoric world and how their myths and rituals may have helped sow the seeds of modern civilization. It's a comprehensive and at times dizzying account that draws from the latest archaeological and genetic research to craft a compelling portrait of a people thought lost to time.

Thinkers from Dante to Leibniz had long noticed peculiar similarities among languages from far-flung places. But it wasn't until 1786, when William Jones, a British judge stationed in India, proposed a link among Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, that the idea of a common lingual ancestor was taken seriously. Since then, researchers have developed a hypothetical vocabulary for PIE that consists of about 1,600 word stems, which form the basis of many of our most common words. For example, "daughter" in English, "thugátēr" in Greek and "duhitár" in Sanskrit are all believed to have been derived from a common PIE root that was transformed by local speech patterns over time. In this, Ms. Spinney sees "a seam that connects east and west; a fiber stretched taut between them that thrums in all of us."

While it's not clear precisely why PIE was able to establish such a wide domain, Ms. Spinney suggests that commerce likely played a role. "In all of recorded history," she writes, "you'd be hard-pressed to find a single example of human beings trading in high-value goods without an effective means of communication." By 4500 B.C., commodities such as gold, copper and salt were moving along a vast trade network centered on the Black Sea. PIE may have first spread thanks to its association with these valuable luxuries.

By 3500 B.C., however, cooler temperatures, long periods of drought and endemic warfare in southeastern Europe led to a period "of broken borders, of fluidity and fusion." Waves of migrants seeking refuge are believed to have carried PIE far beyond its Black Sea homeland. In the subsequent centuries, Ms. Spinney says, PIE "evolved and fragmented" into 12 interrelated branches across Europe, Central Asia and India as later speakers developed their own distinct cultural identities and linguistic needs.

"Proto" appears at an especially fertile time in PIE studies. "The study of ancient DNA has restored flesh to arid bones, to the extent that you sometimes feel as if you can reach out and touch the nomads they belonged to," Ms. Spinney writes. In addition to reconstructing the general appearance of steppe nomads (tall for their time, brunet), scientists can now also track the proliferation of their DNA, to determine with greater accuracy how and when the language spread.

While Ms. Spinney's depictions of the various cultures involved in the spread of PIE are engaging, it can be difficult at times to distinguish which elements are grounded in certainty and which are speculative. For example, her assertion that a precursor to the legend of Faust was first developed by Indo-Europeans who were inspired by early metalsmiths is not as widely held as she implies. Additionally, the sheer geographic and chronological scope of "Proto" can sometimes overwhelm, as Ms. Spinney frequently jumps across thousands of years and miles in a few short paragraphs. And her later chapters, devoted to specific descendants of PIE, make for uneven reading: Some, like her chapter on Indo-Iranian languages, are rich in detail; others, like her section on Albanian, Armenian and Greek, feel cursory at best.

Nevertheless, "Proto" remains a remarkable account of humanity's quest to rediscover its ancient origins, using modern methods to illuminate the world as it was before the advent of written history. For Ms. Spinney, this distant and obscure past holds lessons for the future, as the preservation and purity of language is increasingly a contemporary concern. She points to PIE's malleability as its strength. "The most successful language the world ever knew," writes Ms. Spinney, "was a hybrid trafficked by migrants." Much like English today, PIE thrived due to its ability to absorb new ideas and evolve over time.

--Mr. Brady has reviewed books for the Boston Globe and the Washington Post.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 08, 2025 10:10 ET (14:10 GMT)

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