Prehistory: A Very Short Introduction by Chris Gosden

Author:Chris Gosden
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2003-05-11T04:00:00+00:00

The evidence for the history of languages becomes relevant here, primarily through the work of Colin Renfrew. In 1796, Sir William Jones, chief justice of India and founder of the Royal Asiatic Society, presented a famous discourse on Indian culture in which he pointed out the similarities between the ancient language of India, Sanskrit, and numerous other languages, such as Persian, Greek, Latin, the Germanic, and Celtic languages, found across Europe and Asia.

The word for fire, for instance, is agnis in Sanskrit and ignis in Latin, from which English takes the word ‘ignite’. All the languages of Europe (with a few exceptions, such as Basque, Hungarian, Estonian, and Finnish), some Asian languages, such as Armenian, Persian, and a large number of Indian languages, have been grouped together and termed ‘Indo-European’ languages. Jones sought an origin for these languages in the diaspora thought to have happened after Noah’s ark had landed, which is not an origin many would accept today. However, a great deal of effort has gone into reconstructing an Indo-European proto-language on the basis of similarities in the forms of words known today and systematic changes in their word form over time. The surprising, but undeniable, basis of historical linguistics is the fact that there are systematic sound changes between one language and another, for instance ph in Greek regularly becomes b in Germanic languages – thus the Greek phrater, ‘clan member’, becomes English brother. Systematic changes allow connections to be made and histories to be reconstructed.

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