Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global

by Laura Spinney

Overview

"The story of how one language left the steppes of Ukraine and became the earth's dominant language family has become clearer and more exciting than ever before. Hooray for a book where the author's curiosity, diligence, and literary craft gets it all down in what will stand as the go-to source for a generation.” - John McWhorter, author of The Language Hoax

Daughter. Duhitár-. Dustr. Dukte. Listen to these English, Sanskrit, Armenian and Lithuanian words, all meaning the same thing, and you hear echoes of one of history's most unlikely journeys. All four languages-along with hundreds of others, from French and Gaelic, to Persian and Polish-trace their origins to an ancient tongue spoken as the last ice age receded. This language, which we call Proto-Indo-European, was born between Europe and Asia and exploded out of its cradle, fragmenting as it spread east and west. Its last speaker died thousands of years ago, yet Proto-Indo-European lives on in its myriad linguistic offspring and in some of our best loved works of literature, including Dante's Inferno and the Rig Veda, The Lord of the Rings and the love poetry of Rumi. How did this happen?

Acclaimed journalist Laura Spinney set out to answer that question, retracing the Indo-European odyssey across continents and millennia. With her we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the silk roads and the Hindu Kush. We retrace the epic journeys of nomads and monks, warriors and kings – the ancient peoples who carried these languages far and wide. In the present, Spinney meets the scientists on a thrilling mission to retrieve the lost languages and their speakers: the linguists, archaeologists and geneticists who have reconstructed that ancient diaspora. What they have learned has profound implications for our modern world, because people and their languages are on the move again. Proto is a revelatory portrait of world history in its own words.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639732586
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	05/13/2025
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Laura Spinney is the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and two novels. Her science writing has appeared in The Atlantic, National Geographic, Nature, The Economist, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She lives in Paris.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/21/2025

Journalist and novelist Spinney (Pale Rider) explains how a single language family spread across the world in this astute account. Combining the discoveries of linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists—“barbarians to each other” in their mutual unintelligibility—Spinney aims to take the most holistic approach yet to the topic. The Proto-Indo-European language emerged 6,000 years ago around the Black Sea when the Yamnaya, a group of nomadic herders, shifted into mining and farming—and interacted with others who pioneered those arts—before migrating outward. Spinney traces these early years before considering each major branch, including the extinct Tocharian line (which penetrated into China); the Western European mix of Latin, Celtic, and Germanic; and the Indo-Iranian offshoot (seeded by a return migration eastward during a climate crisis). Each academic specialty provides fascinating insights, among them a stunning genetic discovery from 2020 revealing remains of cousins buried 2,000 miles apart 5,000 years ago, proving migration could have been very rapid; deconstructions of vocabularies that reveal migratory patterns (for instance, since the first Proto-Indo-European speakers were herders, later coastal dwelling speakers had to borrow seafaring terms from other languages); and new interpretations of myths that question whether violent conquest was behind the spread as opposed to marrying outward or mass migration. Impressively weaving raw data and disparate academic conjectures into a sweeping saga, this rivets. (May)

Publishers Weekly

A compelling portrait of a people thought lost to time…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.” —Michael Patrick Brady, Wall Street Journal

“Ancient Greek and Latin can't hold a candle to Proto-Indo-European as far as scope of influence is concerned. The latest from journalist Spinney aims to show just how great the impact of this little-remembered language still is.” —John H. Maher, The Millions

“The great leap in genetic analysis of late has meant that the story of how one language left the steppes of Ukraine and became the earth's dominant language family has become clearer and more exciting than ever before. Hooray for a book where the author's curiosity, diligence, and literary craft gets it all down in what will stand as the go-to source for a generation.” —John McWhorter, author of THE LANGUAGE HOAX

“In this thought-provoking book Laura Spinney shows how recent advances in genetics and archaeological discoveries have thrown new light on the history of the Indo-European languages that a great part of the world now speaks … A lively and fascinating account of how these languages split from their root, developed in different ways, mingled with each other, crossed tracks, flourished and died. I loved it!” —David Bellos, author of IS THAT A FISH IN YOUR EAR?

“Proto is a real detective story told with a compelling combination of academic rigour, human interest, vivid description, and personal biography. A tour de force.” —David Crystal, author of A DATE WITH LANGUAGE

“Formidably researched but lightly written, I put down this book with the pleasurable sense that the world around me had become a little stranger and richer.” —Helen Gordon, author of NOTES FROM DEEP TIME

“Superb. With style and panache, Laura Spinney tells a truly extraordinary detective story.” —Matt Ridley, author of THE EVOLUTION OF EVERYTHING

“This beautifully researched and written book is about far more than language; it is a history of the world in microcosm, drawing together a diversity of subjects from genetics and religion to warfare and boozing. I highly recommend this wholly absorbing book.” —Douglas Preston, author of #1 New York Times bestselling THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD

“Spinney charts an extraordinary journey through human history with words as a compass. It is a sweeping story beautifully told. Profound and illuminating.” —Moudhy Al-Rashid, author of BETWEEN TWO RIVERS

“Journalist and novelist Spinney (Pale Rider) explains how a single language family spread across the world in this astute account. Combining the discoveries of linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists-“barbarians to each other” in their mutual unintelligibility-Spinney aims to take the most holistic approach yet to the topic...Impressively weaving raw data and disparate academic conjectures into a sweeping saga, this rivets.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the Publisher

2025-02-01
Tracking the linguistic predecessor to languages now spoken by billions of people across the globe.

Spinney’s goal is to explain the “Big Bang of the Indo-European languages,” the series of events that led Proto-Indo-European to stem into languages of antiquity and ultimately into the Spanish, Farsi, and English we can recognize today. Her meticulous research synthesizes the work of archaeologists, linguistic historians, and, crucially, geneticists who have sequenced ancient DNA. Findings from these fields have built a case for the speakers ofProto-Indo-European having been the Yamnaya people of the steppe region north of the Black Sea, the world's first fully nomadic pastoralists. The text tracks the probable migratory paths of the Yamnaya from modern-day Ukraine across Europe and Central Asia, their intersections with other ancient societies and cultures, their governance and trades, and the way that those meetings spurred and cultivated new branches of Indo-European. The methods for reconstructing the Proto-Indo-European language involve a complex system for comparing lexicons, grammatical rules, and theories on sound laws; while Spinney includes and attempts to translate these processes, they often seem merely a side story to the vivid theoretical detail with which she shades the movements, relationships, and mythologies of Indo-European ancestors. The text is organized around the evolutions of individual branches of Indo-European, which can be confusing as time weaves in and out of prehistory with different migrations and intertwinements. But this back-and-forth underscores the stakes involved in how we understand such massive dissemination and transformation and the tensions they fuel; indeed, Spinney concludes, there is a potential reflecting pool for the trajectory of Proto-Indo-European in our current moment, as global languages confront the primacy of English, shared written text through 21st-century media and technology, and new migration patterns.

A smart, dense, detailed account.

Kirkus Reviews