Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global

I've been reading this new book, by Laura Spinney, at a slow pace, and have finally finished it. The discussion concerns the history of the Proto-Indo-European language and how it spread beyond its place of origin. That is thought to be the steppes immediately north of the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea in what is now Ukraine and Russia, but there are other possibilities. The language was first spoken there about 6500 years ago and began to spread to other regions about 5500 years ago. The spreading was done by the Yamnaya, and, in various forms, Indo-European is now spoken by half of the world's population. The Yamnaya themselves disappeared as a distinct culture about 4500 years ago. This subject is also discussed by David Reich in Who We Are and How We Got Here, which I covered earlier. Spinney focuses on language evolution, whereas Reich focuses on our species evolution. They both rely on archaeological findings and recorded history, but Reich primarily depends on new DNA analysis techniques. Spinney occasionally refers to Reich's research. 

The Yamnaya were a nomadic people who were skilled in bronze-making and traveled in wheeled carts. They were patriarchal in social structure, and their burial mounds have been excavated. Compared to other groups at the time, they were tall. They kept horses and other animals and had a meat-based diet. They were not lactose-tolerant but ate yogurt and other fermented foods. From the data that is available now, it appears that they became the dominant culture everywhere that they went. Since there is no recorded history about them, one is left to speculate on what they did when they arrived in new areas. The places that they traveled to were generally already inhabited by farmers, and it seems that the Yamnaya soon dominated the gene pools. The locations included nearly all of Europe and parts of northern India. I don't think that there is enough evidence to say that they arrived as warlords, and it is theoretically possible that they had an advantage in disease resistance compared to the local populations. Spinney thinks that they may have behaved similarly to the Mycenaeans, as depicted in the Iliad and Odyssey. But you have to remember that the Yamnaya had been gone for about 1200 years at the time of the Trojan War. She also mentions the Vikings, and I think that is also a plausible comparison. We know the Vikings a lot better than the Mycenaeans, and both groups had Yamnaya ancestries. Even after settling in Scandinavia, Vikings invaded other regions until fairly recently. They occupied parts of England in the 900's and invaded Normandy. William the Conqueror, of Viking extraction, invaded England from Normandy in 1066. The British Isles are now filled with Viking genes. 

Of course, I like to think in evolutionary terms, and it would seem that the Yamnaya had some sort of evolutionary advantage. However, at this point I don't think it's sensible to speculate about it when there are so many possibilities, and many of them can never be studied thoroughly. Yet it is not impossible that the Yamnaya, besides being larger than others at the time, may also have been more technically proficient.

Most of this book is devoted to language developments following Proto-Indo-European. It is interesting to see how older words emerge in newer languages. However, this is a mind-bogglingly complex process, and I don't think that many people, including linguists, would enjoy untangling all of it. We're talking about language evolution over thousands of years, most of which preceded literacy. Even so, this is an interesting book, but it mainly opens a subject that seems incredibly daunting to me and may never answer some questions definitively. But it still may be interesting to the linguists and translators among you.