Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses in the context of "Pre-Indo-European languages"

ā­ In the context of pre-Indo-European languages, which of the following best describes the current linguistic landscape of the regions where these languages once thrived?

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ā­ Core Definition: Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses

The Proto-Indo-European homeland was the prehistoric homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), meaning it was the region where the proto-language was spoken before it split into the dialects from which the earliest Indo-European language later evolved.

The most widely accepted proposal about the location of the Proto-Indo-European homeland was called the steppe hypothesis. It puts the archaic, early, and late PIE homeland in the Ponticā€“Caspian steppe around 4000 BCE. A notable second possibility, which has gained renewed attention during the 2010s and 2020s due to aDNA research, is the Armenian hypothesis, which situates the homeland for archaic PIE ('Indo-Hittite') south of the Caucasus mountains. A third contender is the Anatolian hypothesis, which puts it in Anatolia c.ā€‰8000Ā BCE. Several other explanations have been proposed, including the outdated but historically prominent North European hypothesis, the Neolithic creolisation hypothesis, the Paleolithic continuity paradigm, the Arctic theory, and the "indigenous Aryans" (or "out of India") hypothesis. These are not widely accepted, and are considered to be fringe theories.

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šŸ‘‰ Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses in the context of Pre-Indo-European languages

The pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe, Asia Minor, Ancient Iran, and Southern Asia before the arrival of speakers of Indo-European languages. The oldest Indo-European language texts are Hittite and date from the 19th century BC in KĆ¼ltepe (modern eastern Turkey), and while estimates vary widely, the spoken Indo-European languages are believed to have developed at the latest by the 3rd millennium BC (see Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses). Thus, the pre-Indo-European languages must have developed earlier than or, in some cases, alongside the Indo-European languages that ultimately displaced and replaced almost all of them.

A handful of the pre-Indo-European languages are still extant: in Europe, Basque retains a localised strength, with fewer than a million native speakers, whereas the Dravidian languages remain very widespread in the Indian subcontinent, with over 250 million native speakers (the four major languages being Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam) and the Brahui that stretches into modern Iran. In the Caucasus, Northwest and Northeast Caucasian languages and Kartvelian languages are still intact, with the first having the least language security of the three pre-Indo-European Caucasian language groups. Some pre-Indo-European languages are attested only as linguistic substrates in Indo-European languages or in toponyms. In much of Western Asia (including Iran and Anatolia), the pre-Indo-European, Hurrian/Caucasian, Semitic languages, Dravidian and language isolates have survived to the present day, although Elamite has entirely disappeared.

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Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses in the context of Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a postulated prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family.

Knowledge of them comes chiefly from that linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics. The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the Late Neolithic period (6400 to 3500 BC). Mainstream scholars place them in the Ponticā€“Caspian steppe across Eurasia (this steppe extends from northeastern Bulgaria and southeastern Romania, through Moldova, and southern and eastern Ukraine, through the Northern Caucasus of southern Russia, and into the Lower Volga region of western Kazakhstan, adjacent to the Kazakh steppe to the east, both forming part of the larger Eurasian Steppe). Some archaeologists would extend the time depth of PIE to the Middle Neolithic period (5500 to 4500 BC) or even the Early Neolithic period (7500 to 5500 BC) and suggest alternative origin hypotheses.

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Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses in the context of Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture

The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (EIEC) is an encyclopedia of Indo-European studies and the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The encyclopedia was edited by J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams and published in 1997 by Fitzroy Dearborn. Archaeological articles are written by Mallory, linguistic articles are written by Adams, and include a distinguished Who's Who of 1990s Indo-Europeanists who made contributions as sub-editors. Though it is not a polemic, the work in part extends support to Colin Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis of Indo-European origins.

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Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses in the context of History of the Russian language

Russian is an East Slavic language of the Indo-European family. All Indo-European languages are descendants of a single prehistoric language, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era. Although no written records remain, much of the culture and religion of the Proto-Indo-European people can also be reconstructed based on their daughter cultures traditionally and continuing to inhabit most of Europe and South Asia, areas to where the Proto-Indo-Europeans migrated from their original homeland.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Proto-Indo-Europeans ← Pre-Indo-European languages ← Pre-Indo-European language ← Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture ← History of the Russian language
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Proto-Indo-European → Kazakhstan → Moldova → Romania → Russia → Ukraine → Prehistoric → Linguistic homeland → Proto-Indo-European language → Indo-European languages → Kurgan hypothesis → Ponticā€“Caspian steppe → Common Era → Ancient DNA → Armenian hypothesis → Indo-Hittite → Caucasus → Anatolian hypothesis → Anatolia → North European hypothesis → Neolithic creolisation hypothesis → Paleolithic continuity paradigm → The Arctic Home in the Vedas → Indigenous Aryans → Fringe theory →