Published: August 23, 2012
Tracing the Origins of Indo-European Languages
Anatolian
Tocharian
Armenian
Greek
Albanian
Balto-
Slavic
Italic
Germanic
Insular
Celtic
RUSSIA
FRANCE
Black Sea
UKRAINE
CHINA
ANATOLIA
EGYPT
INDIA
IRAN
Indo-Iranian
Researchers studied the evolution of words across 103 modern and extinct languages from the Indo-European language family, and created a tree showing the relationships among the different languages, at right.
The map above shows where each major branch probably arose, before spreading and diversifying to other regions.
A competing hypothesis places the point of origin in the steppes of modern-day Ukraine and Russia, north of the Black Sea.
Slovenian
Armenian
Tadzik
Lithuanian
Friulian
Lusatian
Waziri
Old Church Slavonic
Scots Gaelic
Persian
Macedonian
Breton
Italian
Afghan
Belarusian
Icelandic
Provençal
Bihari
Oscan
Greek
Swedish
Danish
Luxembourgish
Old Irish
Ossetic
Kashmiri
Polish
Old English
Welsh
Latin
Flemish
Riksmal
Old Norse
Hittite
Classical Armenian
Slovak
Romansh
Urdu
Marwari
Romanian
Avestan
Ukrainian
Bengali
Czech
Spanish
German
Dutch
Kurdish
Vlach
Nepali
Gujarati
Ancient Greek
Albanian
Lahnda
Russian
Hindi
French
Irish
Cornish
Umbrian
Bulgarian
Luvian
Lycian
Oriya
Catalan
Vedic Sanskrit
Old Prussian
Marathi
Old High German
Romani
Faroese
Sindhi
Latvian
Serbo-Croatian
Ladin
Assamese
Gothic
Indo-
Iranian
Insular
Celtic
Italic
Germanic
Balto-Slavic
Albanian
Greek
Armenian
Anatolian
Tocharian
Tocharian
Singhalese
Wakhi
Frisian
Old Persian
Sardinian
Portuguese
Baluchi
ENGLISH
Walloon
8,000
years ago
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
TODAY