Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global

by Laura Spinney, Emma Spurgin-Hussey (Narrator)

Audio duration: 9 hours 3 minutes

One ancient language transformed our world. This is its story.

Star. Stjarna. Stare. Thousands of miles apart, people look up at the night sky and use the same word to describe what they see.

Listen to these English, Icelandic and Iranic words and you can hear echoes of one of the most extraordinary journeys in humanity’s past. All three of these languages – and hundreds more – share a single ancient ancestor.

Five millennia ago, in a mysterious Big Bang of its own, this proto tongue exploded, forming new worlds as it spread east and west. Today, nearly half of humanity speaks an Indo-European language. How did this happen?

In Proto, acclaimed journalist Laura Spinney sets off to find out. With her we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the Silk Roads and the Hindu Kush. We follow in the footsteps of nomads and monks, Amazon warriors and lion kings – the ancient peoples who spread these tongues far and wide. In the present, Spinney meets the linguists, archaeologists and geneticists racing to recover this lost world. What they have discovered has vital lessons for our modern age, as people and their languages are on the move again.

Proto is a revelatory portrait of world history in its own words.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Language, Linguistics, Science, Audiobook, Anthropology

10 pages, Audiobook

First published April 24, 2025

Reviews

[Rick Riordan]

As someone who loves language and makes my living from the written word, I found this book a mind-blowing revelation. Spinney does an incredible job retracing the origins of Indo-European languages back to a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European, by examining both linguistic and archaeological evidence, and she does so in a highly readable way.

My first thought was, "Wow, anthropology and archaeology have come a LONG way since I was a history student back in the 1980s." It's amazing how much we've been able to piece together about prehistoric societies (meaning those without the written word) from genetic evidence and examination of the earliest human settlements. I was particularly struck by how much of the story of Proto-Indo-European is tied to the Ukraine, and how war there has interfered with the ability of archaeologists to study and preserve valuable sites (along with all the other miseries of war).

From the Caucasus, Spinney described how early societies spread across Eurasia, their languages changing and evolving as they went, but still anchored in their common origin. As Spinney puts it, "their psychic universes overlapped. From the Scottish isles to the Himalaya, there existed a chain of societies that was deeply interconnected through trade, custom, language and mythology."

One of the more awe-inspiring things, for me, is how Proto myths can be reconstructed, showing just how many echoes there are in later versions of mythology. Here, for instance, is one Proto-Indo-European creation myth:

"A primordial Man (* Manu) conjures the world from his Twin (* Yemo). After journeying through the cosmos in the company of a primordial cow, Man and Twin decide to make the world. To do this Man must sacrifice Twin and cow so that he can build it from their dismembered parts. The sky gods and goddesses help him, and once the world exists Man becomes the first priest, overseeing ritual sacrifice. The gods then create Third Man (* Trito), to whom they give cattle, but a monster serpent steals the cattle. The name of the serpent is *Ngwhi, which is a literal negation: ‘not’. Fortified by an intoxicating beverage and assisted by a god, Trito overcomes the serpent and frees the sequestered cattle. He then makes a gift of cows to Man the priest, so that the sacrifices may continue and cosmic order be restored. Trito is the first warrior, and that first cattle raid is his initiation into manhood."

Aside from the history lessons, which are fascinating in themselves, I especially enjoyed the exploration of what language *is* and how it functions beyond just a vehicle for communication. As language changes, it becomes one of the major markers of cultural identity. If you speak my language, you are like me. If not, you are an outsider.

Embedded in this idea is a feeling of mistrust around migration which is still with us today: "Migration is considered a major if not the main motor of language change, because it drives a wedge between dialects and brings them into contact with different languages."

People want to belong, and they want to distinguish between "us" and "them." Because of this, we want to believe that our language is somehow pure and unchanging, and we want to resist anything that might "infect" it with foreign influences. Spinney even says that 'barbarians' are literally those whom we cannot understand, and that the word barbarian was "probably inspired by the sound people registered when they heard an unintelligible stream of speech: bar-bar or blah-blah or rhubarb. But everyone heard blah-blah when foreigners spoke."

A similar concept lurks behind the Latin words for guest and enemy. "Hospes (host, guest) and hostis (stranger, enemy). Hospes underlies the word ‘hospitality’ while hostis is the root of ‘hostility’, via Latin loans to English. These two words seem antithetical in their meaning, but they were once linked by the concept of a stranger, that passer-by whom a good welcome might turn into a friend and a bad one into a foe." So that "the moment a newcomer opens their mouth, they reveal whether they belong to ‘us’ or ‘them’."

Stepping back and taking macro view, however, the idea of an isolated, unadulterated language is nonsensical. "There is no such thing as a pure language. Its peculiar mix of archaisms and innovations reflects the periods of calm that it has known, as well as the periods of upheaval, and the other languages that it has brushed with along the way."

Spinney also ties our obsession to cultural monolingual to the rise of the European nation states in the 18th century. "From that time on languages and dialects other than the national ones were repressed. Before that, however, Europe was as multilingual as the rest of the world, and as our species for most of its past."

Again, this is grounded in the need to distinguish between 'us' and 'them.' "Understandably, a lot of people find it unnerving to think of their languages being transformed by the arrival of new ones, or even dying. But underpinning that fear is a false impression that they have remained static in the past. Throughout humanity’s long existence, languages have have never ceased to absorb and change each other."

A few other random tidbits that I found fascinating:

One of the early poetic devices used by bards when relating oral epic stories was the refer to a hero as someone who "urinates standing up." I've been asked to define the word 'hero' many times, but that was never in my top ten list of descriptors.

The idea of the Golden Fleece may have come from the ancient people of the Balkans (in the area of Colchis, where Jason and the Argonauts go) who actually used sheepskins to pan for gold in the rivers, leaving behind glittering fleeces as evidence.

To believe in something means to put your heart into it. "*k’erd-, the root of both ‘cardio’ and ‘heart’, sometimes occurred in the context of an expression, *k’red dheh1-. Literally meaning ‘to put your heart’, this became śrad dhā-in Sanskrit (believe) and crēdō in Latin (I believe)."

Writing is magic. The Ancient Egyptians certainly believed this, but so did most early societies. And when you think about what a radical thing the written word is, this makes sense. "Imagine being shown a scratch on a mossy log and told that it’s your ‘name’. It has no head, arms or legs, yet others who see it will think only of you. When you consider all that writing made possible, from seducing and defrauding people over long distances, to keeping track of complex transactions and claiming property and kinship after your death, it’s not hard to believe that people felt reverence for it; that in their minds it could alter a person’s destiny."

All in all, a wonderful illuminating read, expanding the story of humanity more broadly than I'd ever appreciated. I'll end with this lovely Russian proverb, reminding us that history can teach and guide us, but should not make us nostalgic for some perfect golden past that never existed: "The past is a lighthouse, not a port."

[Fred Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spinney aims at a general audience and mostly does a pretty good job, although it might be a bit challenging for those who don't have a background in languages/linguistics. I already knew a little about Proto Indo-European (IE) but it is largely tangential to my academic training in classical philology. Still, it helps to know most of the terminology.

Unlike older books that focus primarily on historical linguistics and archaeology, Spinney includes the results of recent DNA studies of IE remains which have helped clarify things, bolstering some theories and disposing of others. She starts with a general introduction to IE and its origins. This includes a number of connections with mythology. In a chapter called Genesis, appropriately enough, she discusses massive flooding of the Black Sea (due to melting glaciers) something like 10,000 years ago as a possible origin for the flood myth in Gilgamesh, Genesis, etc. In the Caucasus,the Colchis of the Greeks, sheep fleeces were used to pan for gold. Even for those not particularly into languages, there is a lot of interest. She identifies the nomadic Yamnaya people of the steppes of Central Asia as the original IE speakers. Horsemen, metal workers, and general purveyors of language and myth to the world. There is a fair amount of evidence, including DNA, to support this. But Spinney's greatest weakness is her tendency to pick her theory and stick with it, not always giving full attention to the others.

She then proceeds to address each major IE family in its linguistic and geographic context: Anatolian; Tocharian; Celtic, Germanic, Italic; Indo-Iranian; Baltic and Slavic; Albanian, Armenian, and Greek. It ends up being a wide-ranging cultural survey of prehistoric peoples, edging into historical periods for the modern linguistic descendants of IE. She brings in some of the history of Indo-European studies and some of the personalities of the field.

I enjoyed the book, not that I agree with everything in it. It reminded me of things I used to know and introduced a number that I didn't know. And I now have a list of other books to read when I get around to it.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing, for several reasons. First, I expected a book about linguistics, which this isn’t; the author is a general science writer whose last book was about the Spanish flu, while this one is mostly about archaeology and genetic research and what they reveal about the migrations and lifestyles of ancient groups. Which can be interesting, but the connection to language is tenuous. Most of these groups are being profiled because they might have spoken Proto-Indo-European or an early version of one of its descendants, based on the fact that they lived around the same time linguists guess (based on rates of language evolution) that these were spoken. But we don’t know for sure, and the details about their lives generally seem unrelated to any thesis about language.

Relatedly, there’s the style. I notice several reviewers calling it dense or the material especially difficult, but I don’t think either is true—Spinney is a journalist and her style can be downright breezy, while I don’t typically find books about prehistory difficult to understand. The problem is that she does a poor job of connecting the details she’s providing to the big picture and the arguments she’s making. Without the author connecting the dots, it’s easy for the reader to get confused as to what these details mean and why we’re talking about this particular group or aspect of their culture at all.

Also, many of the arguments need more fleshing out or are downright bizarre. For instance, at one point, in a footnote (because there’s so little linguistics in the actual book), Spinney provides, as evidence that the Italic and Celtic branches are more closely related to each other than either is to Germanic, the fact that superlatives in Italian end in -ssimo, in Irish in -is, and in Proto-Germanic probably something like -isto-, leading to English -est. It is not self-evident to me that “isto” is the outlier here; an explanation of why linguists think so would have been appreciated. Or you get truly bizarre passages, like this one arguing that a massive genetic replacement, particularly of men, in ancient Europe (most of the genetic material and almost all Y-chromosomes of the earlier people were wiped out) might have been something other than the obvious:

“And there is another reason why [the Yamnaya] may have been able to expand their territories peacefully. A German anthropologist called Martin Trautmann has argued that their physical presence would have been intimidating enough. Ancient historians recount that the Germani and Celts were on average six centimetres (just over two inches) taller than Roman centurions – enough, they implied, to give the barbarians a psychological advantage. Yamnaya men were on average ten centimetres taller than the male farmers they encountered. They would have had a noticeably heavier build and deeper voices. Their facial features – lantern jaw, prominent nose, deep-set eyes – can’t have failed to impress their slenderer, lighter-boned interlocutors, and they may have heightened the effect by sporting tattoos on their foreheads. Traces of the dyes they used have been found on their skulls.” (emphasis in original)

So, basically, the speakers of Proto-Indo-European were so physically big and scary-looking that the indigenous inhabitants of Europe (specifically the males, because a decent amount of DNA remained – just not Y-chromosomes) gave up their land without a fight, slunk away, and died? (Or at least never had sex again?) Keep in mind we are talking about humans here. As far as I know, we are not a species in which the males’ testes shrivel up when confronted by a more dominant specimen. The accompanying argument is that perhaps there was a plague that hit one population harder than the other (specifically, the indigenous men?), which while perhaps not quite as unlikely as the “death by lantern jaws” theory, still isn’t a plausible explanation on its own. It’s unclear that any elements were present that would’ve caused one group to have much stronger resistance than the other, not to mention the sex disparity. And even in recorded history where some groups have been especially vulnerable to diseases carried by another (for reasons not seemingly present here, what with everyone involved having lived on the same continent since forever, and the indigenous group being farmers while the invaders were nomads), the diseases never wiped out everybody, they just provided an opportunity for conquerors to give it their best shot. Genocide (along with enslavement of surviving women) is certainly the blindingly obvious explanation here for anyone familiar with humanity, leaving me wondering why the author is working so hard to deny it.

In the end, I finished this book not really knowing any more about why Indo-European languages wound up covering so much of Eurasia than I did when I began. (They didn’t kill everyone everywhere, that seems to have mostly been northern Europe.) The author throws out a few other suggestions—maybe fostering of sons deepened ties between families to the point of creating a more durable culture? Maybe everybody else just really loved Indo-European drinking culture, enough to switch to their languages?—but these arguments aren’t fleshed out enough to make much sense of them, nor is it clear how different early Indo-Europeans were from their neighbors in these respects. In the end, we have only “right place-ish, right time-ish” to suggest who spoke Indo-European at all.

So that was mostly a lot of nothing, though it was kind of fun to learn a bit about ancient cultures and how much scientists can now learn about their lifestyles by recovering ancient DNA, analyzing tooth composition, etc. Still, I wouldn’t recommend.

[Alysa H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, well-researched book. In Proto, author Laura Spinney (with assists from the various other academicians she mentions by name throughout) takes a sweeping, multidisciplinary approach to historical linguistics, attempting to trace the origin, spread, and evolution of the vast Indo-European language family from its ancient beginnings through to modern times. Because of the sometimes meandering nature of the writing -- and the topic itself -- I occasionally had a hard time keeping track of which bits are solid fact (such as DNA analysis of human remains from different archaeological sites), which bits are widely-accepted points of agreement, and which bits are still mainly theoretical, but I was thoroughly engrossed and learned things I never knew I needed to know about the history of Eurasia. I've been both entertained and educated!


** I received a Review Copy of this book via NetGalley **
(May 2025 Bloomsbury edition)

[Olivia Swindler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was fascinating and extremely well researched. Overall, it was a little too academic and in the weeds for me. I love languages and history, but at times this felt too granular. There were a lot of interesting tidbits that I will remember!

Thank you to libro.fm for my ALC.

[Hank · Rating 4 out of 5]

And the last of my reviews I have to catch up on after my laptop died because I can't type this many words on my phone.

Could I have an intelligent conversation at a cocktail party about languages and how they evolved after reading this? Absolutely not but that isn't Spinney's fault. Can I remember even a few of the the super interesting facts she laid out about languages? Also no. Did I completely enjoy just listening to her talk about language origins, the many, many ways they spread, how they influence cultures and lots of other tidbits? Definitely yes!

Truly a fun book to listen to. Thank you once again LibroFM for the ALC

[Annikky · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

I have a strange obsession with the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language and its origins. Well, to be more precise, in some ways it's not strange at all, as I love pre-history and I find languages fascinating. On the other hand, however, I am not the biggest fan of Indo-Europeans (I am speaking very generally and historically here, but they seem too fond of hierarchy, war, glory and their cows) and frankly the European languages* are absolutely the least interesting for me personally. Despite this, I find the story of the Yamnaya and the search of the original 'homeland' of PIE absolutely thrilling. I plowed through David Anthony's The Horse, the Wheel, and Language which covers some similar ground to Proto, but in much more detail, and devoured David Reich's Who We Are and How We Got Here - Reich's work provides much of the genetic evidence underlying this book. (Both men are amply quoted in Proto.)

I am telling you all this to manage your expectations: if you do not like the topic as much as I do, you will perhaps not enjoy the book as much as I did. Then again, all this amazing stuff about the cultures that gave us PIE, the twelve language families, the recent genetic findings and reconstructions of old words will be new and exciting for you. I have seen some people complain that the book is dense - I do not agree, I think it is very well written and accessible, certainly easier to read than Anthony or Reich. However, the fact that a lot of the info here is familiar to me definitely makes things less difficult to follow, so keep that in mind. Also, there were a few places in the text where I did lose the thread or where things could have been explained more clearly (for example the early chapter on the lingua franca, where it was not super clear who was who and how they were connected). Partly, this reflects the underlying complexity and the inevitable need to speculate, but occasionally it also seemed like an editing issue. Spinney is clearly a great writer and has a very good grasp on the substance, so I suspect something got lost in the revision process. But honestly, this is the only complaint I have and the reason why this isn't a full five stars.

What I was most impressed by in this book was the abundance and freshness of the sources, the research here is really up-to-date, often referencing things published in 2024. It is especially relevant for this topic, as the field is moving very quickly, in particular when it comes to genetics, so things date fast**. Spinney is a journalist by profession, but she seems to have read every relevant scientific paper. She even quotes some Estonian researchers (I can tell you, as an Estonian, that this is rare) and Estonian is not an IE language! In the context of the book, the Uralic languages are relevant only as far as they interact with the IE languages, but Spinney still gives them their due. Somewhat surprisingly, the chapter on Slavic and Baltic languages turned out to be one of my favourites - I'm usually much more interested in the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, for example. Then again, considering that the chapter covered two of my other obsessions - Marija Gimbutas and the Novgorod Republic - it is perhaps not that surprising after all.

Anyway, all this rambling is to say that if you have any interest in this topic specifically or early history/language development more generally, this is a good read.


*I am fully aware that there are branches of IE that are spoken outside of Europe and these are, indeed, much more interesting. But I am generalising here from a very personal, unscientific perspective.
**This of course also means that things in this book will date and some theories that Spinney covers may be proven wrong. I think Spinney makes that clear, but inevitably, much of the nuance of the scientific debate is lost in a 300-page book.

[R Adrien · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to read this book and wanted to like it but found the disquisition a little too non-linear, asif the author wanted to envelope surprises and details into the prose instead of laying things out as plainly as possible.

The history of the Indo-European languages is very complex for sure, so this book should have been laid things out using a more logical structure - like presenting more general details and then moving into specifics, and without interleaving multiple hypotheses in such a convoluted way.

This book has to be read very, very slowly.. or you will end up putting it down or completely skimming it.

A missed opportunity to present an easier read on a fascinating history but still a worthwhile read if the subject matter interests you as much as it does me.

[Awais Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was “history in a microcosm” as a reviewer pointed out! Delightful read that left me slightly better informed about the pre historic and early historic Eurasia. How migrations happened, how languages morphed, how mythologies spread.

[Alissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 I have an interest in the topics of early human history and language development and found the data in this book compelling and digestible, but the presentation and organization did not blow me away. Especially in audio format, I found myself zoning out when there weren’t clear and consistent connections made to thread the two topics of culture and language. Still, an enjoyable experience, though unfortunately not one I will likely remember long-term.

Thank you to libro.fm for the free educator ALC.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Journalist Laura Spinney examines the origin points of Proto-Indo-European, the ancient reconstructed language considered by many to be the root of many languages spoken today, from English to Sanskrit to Greek to Russian. She looks not only at linguistic connections, but also archeological and genetic evidence, much of which comes from the last 20 years, piecing together cultural migrations, invasions, peaceful intermingling, and reasons language and its grammatical structure takes hold.

I've been fascinated with the links between languages for decades. I took a seminar in college on India and Greece, and the cultural and linguistic ties between the two ancient civilizations, and it stuck with me. Give me root words across multiple languages and I start looking for connections. So this book was written for me. While some of this was familiar to me, a lot of the research Spinney uses to link these theories is more recent than when I was in college - some of the archeological discoveries are even as recent as 2023. Using more than just linguistic roots, she builds a compelling case.

I appreciated that Spinney is careful to point out where language and identity are tied, especially in the cases of the conquerors vs the vanquished, colonizers vs indigenous populations, and nationalism and f@scist political ideologies. (I was nervous to pick up the book in the first place, because the way an author addresses those issues can make or break my respect for their linguistic scholarship.)

I listened to the audiobook, which I found fascinating. The narrator, Emma Spurgin-Hussey, took careful note of pronunciations, and I enjoyed listening to her recite the root words together. I do think that anyone reading this would benefit from a multi-format approach, because most readers will find it helpful to see the written words as well as hear them.

It's been a hot minute since I could get my brain to connect to a nonfiction book, and I'm so glad this was the one I picked up. It stays at a journalistic level, rather than diving deeper into an academic level, so for most readers, even without prior knowledge of PIE and linguistics, you should be able to follow, and for those familiar with the field, this will likely feel broad but helpful.

Thank you to LibroFM for an ALC. Proto is out now.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm hoping that my biggest challenge/disappointment with this book is simply because I read an eARC and will be corrected in print: where are the maps?? It was difficult tracking this or that ancient culture and their travels without them.

The author does not take one of those dry, academic looks at the topic, which helps. It would have been nice had there been more examples of how this or that word translated into more modern languages. There are times when she does that, but far too often we learn that the word for [item] is found in these three languages without being shown how that actually looks. Again, that might be present in the print/finished edition.

I also wanted more about some of the lesser known languages, like Basque. The Romani exit from India to Europe is touched on several times but never really followed through on (eg., they pass through Persia before certain words enter Farsi, but then pretty much disappear from the book). There's a lot of time spent on the genetics and the "lifestyle" differences (hunter-gatherers vs farmers, arts, etc.) and less on the actual language and how it spread.

For those interested in linguistics, this is a good starter book.

eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss.

[Caitlin Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting factoids here in a certain sense but my reading comprehension was only operating at 30% bc by nature of the subject of the history of proto indo-European language, this book is a bit dense. I liked the parallel between languages spreading like diseases!
I got lost with most of the names and places here but still gleaned how universally important horses are to humanity. Felt like staring at a landscape painting at a museum when fundamentally I’m a portrait painting kinda person

[Chad D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really glad I read it. The relevant information in one place. Wide linguistic reading, distilled. It's got a chapter each for major PIE language families/groupings, and activates them over time, so we can see them expanding (mostly, although sometimes contracting and sometimes retracing their steps or should I say steppes?). It's a good time to write such a book, because the genetic science filling in our linguistic reconstructions has exploded over the last decade; fresh knowledge is pouring out by the year. A very exciting time.

I'm not sure it's possible to write a satisfactory book on this subject. It covered a lot of time and space, and three academic disciplines (linguistics, archaeology, and genetics). The maps for every chapter were essential, and yet, not quite enough to keep everything organised (in my head at least). Sometimes the storytelling was vivid, and sometimes it just read like a summary arranging names and events into sentences without the reader invested enough in the names and events for the sentences to come to life. Every once in a while, the author drops un a vignette featuring a contemporary linguist. These were welcome when they began, so I think someone figured out the book needed some sort of living people walking around, but they didn't pay off, really, either in plot or character.

I don't think the book WORKED, really, as a rider of the border between popular nonfiction and academic precision. And yet, it pulled together a lot of crucial information about What We Now Know about PIE. It's reasonably accessible to the general reader with a bit of linguistic knowledge, which is more accessible than most linguistics. If you care about the topic, go for it.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many people, I have been fascinated with the idea that Proto-IndoEuropean somehow encapsulates the core values that have dominated Europe for the last several thousand years. And Spinney's book is a thorough survey of the current state of research, which is slowly reducing ambiguity around questions such as where the language developed and how it spread. But ultimately, here, I found myself wondering if this really does all matter quite so much. PIE languages are surrounded by non-PIE languages for all their existance. And in the end, what comes through here, is that societies continue to evolve and change as part of a massive mosaic that is more marked by change than continuity. And no story of a single linguistic tradition can encompass the vastness of humanity, even the European kind. It is also hard not to acknowledge that for some, the idea of a piure steppe culture, feels like a fantasy attractive to those who want to avoid the realities of our multiworld. Spinney emphasises that the world has always been multi, but I found myself wanting a bigger, broader story.

[Cheesecat777 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the best archaeology books I’ve read so far. Highly recommend if you’re interested in how languages have evolved or if you are interested in archaeology. Endlessly fascinating for sure. I think my favorite chapter was chapter 4, about Tocharian, a language I have never heard of before. Definitely one of my favorite books of this year.

[katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 ⭐️ this was interesting but at times i was getting confused cause geography is not my strong suit and played into this more than i thought (lots of map consulting). i liked learning about the actual changes that languages go through and the role of current ancient DNA studies which i wasn’t expecting to be included in this book

[Kenzie O’Neill · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was super interesting but I did not have the background knowledge to keep up most of the time. Trying not to take it too personally :/

[Juan Villalba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brillante, absolutamente brillante

[Angela Boord · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating exploration of linguistic, genetic, mythological, and archaeological data. Narrator was great ; I would actually recommend listening on audio to hear the various language excerpts spoken.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will never not be interested to hear everything about the Indo European language/cultural tree

[Patricia]

Didn't finish, so not rated. The style and topic were fun. The discussion of what is now possible with DNA analysis was amazing. But when she asserts that "Modern English-speakers can understand the Middle English of Shakespeare" (17), I had to wonder how trustworthy the rest of the research and editing might be. Middle English is earlier, and it includes a number of variations that send modern readers to a good glossary at least. Shakespeare's early modern English is quite different. It's a little slip in a book that the author worked hard on. Still, it's a basic thing people learn in history of the language and medieval classes and I am feeling down about the stuff we don't think it's important to know anymore.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been on a language kick lately and this one hit the spot.

“Migration has been a constant, ‘indigenous’ is relative. Ten thousand years of human displacement have shrunk the genetic distance between populations to the point where ethnic divisions are losing meaning. The desire to belong is as strong as ever, and as it becomes harder to see the difference between ‘them’ and ‘us’, linguistic and cultural boundaries are being guarded more jealously. Language is becoming a battleground in the identity wars, and preserving our linguistic ‘purity’ a justification used by those who want to raise walls.”

[Christian Zelger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Das Buch verfolgt einen interessanten, wahrscheinlich sogar unerlässlichen Ansatz bei der Beantwortung der Frage nach den Ursprüngen des Proto-Indoeuropäischen: Die Sprachwissenschaft arbeitet mit der Archäologie und der Genetik Hand in Hand. So spannend das auch klingt, die Umsetzung von Laura Spinney ist nicht ganz gelungen. Zunächst verleitet der Titel "Der Urknall unserer Sprache" zur Annahme, dass es in erster Linie um Sprache ginge. Leider ist das nicht so. Es werden zwar immer wieder Wortbeispiele angeführt, aber eben nur am Rande. Wie diese Wörter rekonstruiert werden konnten, wäre für das Verständnis durchaus hilfreich gewesen. Aber Spinney ist weder Linguistin noch Archäologin und das merkt man dem Buch an. Sie reiht Forschungsergebnisse von anderen aneinander, manchmal auch sich vollkommen widersprechende Theorien. Dies wäre im Rahmen einer solchen Darstellung nicht weiter schlimm, allein stellt sich die Frage, was der Leser damit anfangen soll, wenn er erfährt, dass eine Wanderbewegung nach Osten verlaufen sein könnte, aber auch nach Westen. Überhaupt kommen viel zu viele "würde, hätte, könnte" im Text vor. Auch einige Unklarheiten und Ungereimtheiten fallen auf: Sie verwendet die zum Verwechseln ähnlichen Begriffe "indoiranisch" und "indoarisch" in einem Absatz, ohne zu erklären, worin der Unterschied liegt; sie nutzt die synonymen Wörter "indoeuropäisch" und "indogermanisch", aber letzteres kommt im Register als eigenes Stichwort vor, so als, ob es etwas Eigenständiges wäre. Einige konkretere Angaben zur Genetik finden sich erst in den kleingedruckten Anmerkungen am Ende des Buches, aber anscheinend waren diese für sie zu wenig relevant, um sie in den Haupttext zu integrieren und im Kontext zu erklären. Erst am Schluss gibt es einen Stammbaum der Sprachen, in dem aber plötzlich ein indotocharischen Ast erscheint, der - wenn ich ihn nicht überlesen habe - im ganzen Text nicht vorzukommen scheint. Ausschnitte dieser Übersicht in den jeweiligen Kapiteln wären hingegen sehr nützlich gewesen. Alles in allem bietet das Buch zwar sehr viele Informationen, die aber in meinen Augen viel zu wenig auf den Punkt gebracht sind. 2,5/5 Punkte

[Katie Livingston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super interesting book on language, which I enjoyed thoroughly. Written in prose anyone regardless of familiarity with the topic can read, though there are parts I wished were better glossed or discussed. I also wish there were more footnotes for certain facts, because while I truly believe in the veracity of what Spinney said, there were some points where I would have liked a source for things mentioned that weren’t necessarily the focus of the chapter (and apparently seen as not needing a source because of that.) Also, as an archaeologist, I would have loved figures of the finds and sites mentioned, though I understand licensing can be an utter pain and expensive.

For those of you unfamiliar with linguistics but curious, be mindful that even I had a hard time keeping times and places straight but this isn’t a mark against the author - tracing languages is nebulous so finding the perfect way to outline it in written word is a hard task.

Finally, the conclusion made me cry because I love humanity.

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suspect that if I was a linguist, I would be displeased. Fortunate for me, therefore, that I am not! This was an engaging read, and quite informative. Spinney does a very good job of providing historiography, or whatever the linguistics version of that is. Whenever there is active debate on the subject, she explains the debate and its participants, as well as the latest research (now a few years old, of course). I find this highly admirable in a pop-history/science book, as so many of them do not.

[GretchenPhrase · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an entertaining and yet sophisticated book about linguistics and actually way beyond that. Has been a while since I was that captivated by any work of linguistics. Highly recommend for for linguistics lovers who don't mind an academic writing style (that is still very entertaining to me).

[Walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Autorin greift auf sprachwissenschaftliche, archäologische und genetische Erkenntnisse zurück, um die Entwicklung und den gegenwärtigen Bestand der indoeuropäischen Sprachen darzustellen. Spannend, auch wenn es mal wieder mich darin bestärkt hat, keines der Fächer zu meinem Lebensinhalt gemacht zu haben. Über das Rating bin ich mir unsicher, weil ich mir bei vielen Details noch mehr Inhalt gewünscht hätte. Und trotzdem wäre weniger ungerecht angesichts meiner Freude beim Lesen. Es bleibt aber ein Rätsel: Wie soll es geschehen sein, dass die Sprache einer Bevölkerungsgruppe nördlich des Schwarzen Meeres den Ursprung von Sprachen bildet, die die mit Abstand größte Sprachfamilie bilden? Sind wir alle Ukrainer?

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was pretty interesting. At some points it was rather dry and all the historic movements of the settlememts didn't really interest me tho I understand why they are important and why they are described in this.

It also has some political messages that I quiet enjoyed.

All in all it was a well done book and I really enjoyed learning some more.

[Bel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent first read of 2026, and a great follow up to David Reich's "Who We Are and How We Got Here". Reich also features in this book!