INTRODUCTION: THE MYSTERY OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS
Two thirds of the world’s population speak Indo-European languages today, as their primary language, as a second language, as alingua franca, as the language of education or as a country’s official language. The spectrum of around 440 individual languages ranges from major languages such as Hindi with around 550 million speakers (of which around 430 million are primary speakers) to minor languages such as Vedda in the mountains of Sri Lanka with fewer than 300 speakers.
Most historical and modern world languages, i.e. languages with global communication potential, belong genealogically to the Indo-European language family: Greek and Latin in antiquity; and in more recent times, Spanish, Portuguese, French and English (in chronological order since the 16th century). The holy scriptures of various world religions have been recorded in Indo-European languages: Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Pali, among others. How did Indo-European languages become so successful? Where did they originate?
In search of linguistic affinities
The relationships between languages and the reasons for their differences have been contemplated since the times of the earliest civilisations; however, this did not produce any systematic research. In the Middle Ages scholars first identified the Romance and Germanic language groups, yet they failed to recognise that there was also a relationship between these two groups. InDe rebus Hispaniae, written in 1243, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada noted that the languages of Europe were divided into three main groups: Romance, Slavic and Germanic. It was not until the 17th century, however, that the first serious attempts were made to identify the overarching language families.
The impetus for this came from the Europeans’ deep preoccupation with the languages and culture of India from the early modern era. The first samples of the Sanskrit language to be conveyed to Europe, the text of a religious invocation (Om Srii naraina nama), appeared in a letter written in 1544 by the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier, who knew Greek and Latin. Thomas Stevens (1583) and Filippo Sassetti (1585) were the first to make comparisons between Sanskrit and European languages. This led to the development of more comprehensive collections of samples from many different languages. Among the earliest endeavours to catalogue and classify the world’s languages are the works of Theodor Bibliander (De ratione communi omnium linguarum, 1548) and Conrad Gesner (Mithridates, 1555). Gesner based his collections of language material on translations of theLord’s Prayer.
About 150 years later Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716) proposed to Tsar Peter I that he should compile a list of the languages of his empire, but this suggestion was not taken up until later, when the German-born Tsarina Catherine II (ruled 1762–1796) ordered it to be undertaken. She was deeply committed to language research and fostered an imperial-scale project to collect language samples from her multi-ethnic state as well as from around the world. For the purpose of expanding her collections, Catherine also corresponded with George Washington, who subsequently commissioned a researcher to draw up an inventory of the North American Indian languages. The collections were collated by the Ger
