August 23, 2012
Tracing the Origins of Indo-European Languages
A new study suggests that the sprawling Indo-European family of languages originated in Anatolia, or modern-day Turkey.
Researchers studied the evolution of words across 103 modern and extinct languages from the Indo-European language family, and created an information tree showing the relationships among the different languages. An accompanying map shows where each major branch probably arose, before spreading and diversifying to other regions.
A competing hypothesis places the point of origin in the steppes of modern-day Ukraine and Russia, north of the Black Sea.
Click here to view the information tree and the map published by the New York Times.
