Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics, dealing with the Indo-European languages. Its goal is to uncover information about the proto-language from which all of these languages are descended, a language of the early Bronze Age dubbed Proto-Indo-European, and its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Comparative Linguistics

The existence of the Proto-Indo-Europeans has been inferred by comparative linguistics. The discovery of the genetic relationship of the various Indo-European languages goes back to William Jones, a British judge in India, who in 1782 observed, that,

"The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists."

At first, the related languages were simply compared, with no attempt at reconstruction. August Schleicher was the first scholar to compose a tentative text in the extinct common source Jones had predicted. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) represents, by definition, the common language of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. In the 20th century, great progress was made due to the discovery of more language material belonging to the Indo-European family, and by advances in comparative linguistics, by scholars such as Ferdinand de Saussure. Purely linguistic research was assisted by attempts to reconstruct the culture and religion of the Proto-Indo-Europeans by scholars such as Georges Dumézil, as well as by archaeology (e. g. Marija Gimbutas, Colin Renfrew) and genetics (e. g. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza).

Origin of the Term

The term Indo-European itself now current in English literature, was coined in 1813 by the British scholar Sir Thomas Young, although at that time, there was no consensus as to the naming of the recently discovered language family. Among the names suggested were:

• indo-germanique (C. Malte-Brun, 1810)
• Indoeuropean (Th. Young, 1813)
• japetisk (Rasmus C. Rask, 1815)
• indisch-teutsch (F. Schmitthenner, 1826)
• sanskritisch (Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1827)
• indokeltisch (A. F. Pott, 1840)
• arioeuropeo (G. I. Ascoli, 1854)
• Aryan (F. M. Müller, 1861)
• aryaque (H. Chavée, 1867).

In English, Indo-German was used by J. C. Prichard in 1826 although he preferred Indo-European. In French, use of indo-européen was established by A. Pictet (1836). In German literature, Indo-Europäisch was used by Franz Bopp since 1835, while the term Indo-Germanisch was introduced by Julius von Klapproth in 1823, intending to include the northernmost and the southernmost of the family's branches, as it were as an abbreviation of the full listing of involved languages that had been common in earlier literature. Indo-Germanisch became established by the works of August Friedrich Pott , who understood it to include the easternmost and the westernmost branches, opening the doors to ensuing fruitless discussions whether it should not be Indo-Celtic, or even Tocharo-Celtic.

That many of the names include the Germanic languages, this does not mean that the German language is somehow more related to the origins, it's just because many of the early studies on the Indo-European languages were done by Germans.

Today, Indo-European, Indo-Européen is well established in English and French literature, while Indo-Germanisch remains current in German literature, but alongside a growing number of uses of Indo-Europäisch.

See also

• Proto-language
• Historical linguistics
• Comparative method