Aug 31, 2026 · 1 hr 8 min · 15 segments
How does one ancient language live on in half the languages we speak today? Dr. Rich Warms, Professor of Anthropology, joined me for a discussions of Laura Spinney's far-ranging book *Proto*. See…
Richard WormsGuest
Priscilla Vance LederHostAs the subtitle kind of says it, it shows how one ancient language went global.
It forms the basis of the languages spoken by, as she puts it, almost half of humanity today.
And if you haven't yet looked in the back of the dictionary for the big chart, you would discover that it is...
Her introduction describes the discovery of Proto-Indo-European, how people realized that such a thing had existed, and she documents the development of methods for studying the transmission of languages.
The methods that are used today are historical linguistics, archaeology, and DNA studies, and they provide the evidence that she draws upon to trace the proliferation of Proto-Indo-European languages.
Chapters 1 and 2 describe the origins of the language and the culture that gave rise to it.
And the rest of the chapters are organized according to the different branches of the original.
And the conclusion, finally... deals with the present and future of global language and language study, if that wasn't enough for you to cover in one chapter.
Okay, and I will confess why this time, sometimes my guests pick the book, Rich, I don't know if I told you that.
Yeah, well, and in the future, if there's something you would like to come and talk about.
But I talked about those origin charts that you see in the dictionary, and I was always fascinated by those.
It was really one of my first exposures as quite a little kid to the idea that languages were related to each other and that there was such a thing as the history of languages.
As the subtitle kind of says it, it shows how one ancient language went global.
It forms the basis of the languages spoken by, as she puts it, almost half of humanity today.
And if you haven't yet looked in the back of the dictionary for the big chart, you would discover that it is...
Her introduction describes the discovery of Proto-Indo-European, how people realized that such a thing had existed, and she documents the development of methods for studying the transmission of languages.
The methods that are used today are historical linguistics, archaeology, and DNA studies, and they provide the evidence that she draws upon to trace the proliferation of Proto-Indo-European languages.
Chapters 1 and 2 describe the origins of the language and the culture that gave rise to it.
And the rest of the chapters are organized according to the different branches of the original.
And the conclusion, finally... deals with the present and future of global language and language study, if that wasn't enough for you to cover in one chapter.
Okay, and I will confess why this time, sometimes my guests pick the book, Rich, I don't know if I told you that.
Yeah, well, and in the future, if there's something you would like to come and talk about.
But I talked about those origin charts that you see in the dictionary, and I was always fascinated by those.
It was really one of my first exposures as quite a little kid to the idea that languages were related to each other and that there was such a thing as the history of languages.
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