Lingthusiasm
110: The history of the history of Indo-European - Interview with Danny Bate
November 20, 20251h · 11,114 words
Show notes
Before there was English, or Latin, or Czech, or Hindi, there was a language that they all have in common, which we call Proto-Indo-European. Linguists have long been fascinated by the quest to get a glimpse into what Proto-Indo-European must have looked like through careful comparisons between languages we do have records for, and this very old topic is still undergoing new discoveries.
Highlighted moments
even when that's true, and I do think it is true for Proto-Indo-European, the word order was very flexible. You can still have syntax. You can still have word order. It's just serving different purposes.
“they take a letter like gamma, used for a voiced g sound, and they think, well, we like this letter. It's very nicely shaped. It's very simple to draw. It's at the start of our alphabet. It kind of belongs there. But we don't have the sound g for which it currently stands. I know. We'll repurpose it. It'll be k instead.”
“we double the consonant letter to indicate to the reader that the vowel, the sound, the vowel sound before it is a short one.”
Transcript
Transcript not available for this episode yet.
More from Lingthusiasm
118: Using tech to chat with bonobos, dogs, and whales
Jul 17, 202645 min
117: What makes for beautiful writing, scientifically speaking
Jun 19, 202649 min
116: Cross-cultural communication (in space!)
May 22, 202631 min
115: The long shadow of Daisy Bates with This Guy Sucked
Apr 17, 20261h
114: Begonia, average coral, and sea pink - Defining colour terms with Kory Stamper
Mar 20, 202654 min