The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern WorldRoughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization. |
From inside the book
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... not whiteskinned or long-headed. But then how can the Sanskrit language be connected with a skull type? And how did the Aryans themselves define “Aryan”? According to their own texts, they conceived of “Aryan-ness” 10 Chapter 1.
... defined; the boundaries between races are defined differently by different groups of people, and, since these definitions are cultural, scientists cannot describe a “true” boundary between any two races. Also, archaeologists have their ...
... define how a given innovation in pronunciation affects the old speech system—if sound shifts are predictable—then we should be able to play them backward, in effect, to hear earlier language states. That is more or less how Proto-Indo ...
... defined by its rules. Rules govern sentence construction (syntax), and the relationship between the sounds of words (phonology and morphology) and their meaning. Learning these rules changes our awareness from that of an infant to a ...
... defined virtually all the sound changes and analogical shifts in the evolution of French from Latin. Regular, systematic rules, applicable also to other cases of language change in other languages, explain most of these shifts. But how ...
Contents
The Opening of the Eurasian Steppes | 121 |
Authors Note on Radiocarbon Dates | 467 |
Notes | 471 |
507 | |
547 | |
Other editions - View all
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian ... David W. Anthony No preview available - 2007 |