Indo-European

Indo-European is the name of a language family and also of the hypothetically reconstructed proto-language from which this family descends. Indo-European languages, formerly called Indo-Germanic languages, have historically been spoken from India to Europe (hence their name), as well as being spoken in many other parts of the world as a result of European colonization. These languages have many features in common with each other and different from those of other families of languages, even spoken in close areas of the world; however, what gives unity to the Indo-European languages is the phylogenetic relationship and the history of the family, which has been reconstructed in considerable detail thanks to the comparative method and historical linguistics.

In addition, the term Indo-European is also used to refer to the historical peoples who originally spoke those languages (Indo-European peoples), their society (Indo-European society), their religion (Indo-European religion), and their culture (Indo-European culture). The term Indo-European is used mainly in the social sciences (anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, ethnology, philology, geography and history) and especially in historical linguistics. It has also been used in pseudoscience, in certain contexts, for which reason it has occasionally been the subject of special controversy ("the Indo-European problem"), as a justification for ideological positions (Nordicism)..

Origin of the concept

The concept was born as a philological concept, given the identification that comparative philology began to make between a large group of languages currently spoken from India to Europe. William Jones is often cited as one of the first scholars to observe the parallels between Latin, classical Greek, and Sanskrit, and deduced that these languages, and others, derived from a common ancestor. Although previously Filippo Sassetti (1585) who had traveled the Indian subcontinent noted the similarities of various Indo-European languages with the Sanskrit of India, it was perhaps the Dutch scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn (16747) who noting these similarities theorized that they would be inherited from a primitive common language which he called 'Scythian'. The concept of Indo-European came to be applied also to the historical peoples who originally spoke those languages (Indo-European peoples), to their society (Indo-European society), to their religion (Indo-European religion) and to their culture (Indo-European culture).).

The terms Indo-Germanic or Indo-Germanic were used interchangeably, especially in the German-speaking world, although it was originally coined in French. The term "Indo-European" was initially used in English. Different denominations used for the same concept were Japhetic or others related to Sanskrit, to Celtic (Indo-Celtic), to Aryan (Aryan-European) or tocarian.

The concepts Indo-Aryan, Indo-Iranian and Indo-Hittite are used in a differentiated, but confluent way.

It should not be confused, however, with the completely different concept of the Indo-Greek, as it refers to the Hellenistic influence in India after Alexander the Great.

Proto-Indo-European

There are different hypotheses about the initial location, in time and space (around 4000 BC, although most point to the environment of the extensive steppe zone between southeastern Europe and central Asia -Urheimat-) of those that should have been "first" manifestations of the Indo-European: the Proto-Indo-European; and with them, the so-called Proto-Indo-European language, the people or group of peoples who would speak it (Proto-Indo-European people) and the archaeological reconstruction of its possible cultural and social features (Proto-Indo-European religion, Proto-Indo-European culture, Proto-Indo-European society). A possible Anatolian origin of the family has also been pointed out, especially by the archaeologist Colin Renfrew. However, the hypotheses related to the Pontic-Caspian steppe are now more widely accepted and popular.

Pre-Indo-European

Both terms (Indo-European and Proto-Indo-European) are used especially in opposition to Pre-Indo-European, which designates the substratum prior to the arrival of the Indo-Europeans (or, in their case, Pre-Indo-Europeans), both in India and in Europe or Anatolia. In the case of the protohistory of Spain, the term "pre-Indo-European" identifies the area of the south and east of the peninsula (Tartessos and the cultural area of the Iberians), while the term "Indo-European" identifies the area of the center, west and north (identified roughly with the cultural area of the Celtic). The Aquitanians spoke a pre-Indo-European language, ancestor of modern Basque.

Pre-Proto-Indo-European is a different concept, referring to a particularly archaic state, prior to that of common reconstructed Proto-Indo-European, which should not be confused with what referred to the previous concept of Pre-Indo-European.

Indo-Europeanization

Due to similarity with the concepts of Romanization or Arabization, the concept of Indo-Europeanization is used to designate the acculturation and linguistic substitution that occurred as a consequence of contact with the Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European peoples.

Indo-Europeanism or Indo-Europeanism

Among the most important Indo-Europeanists (those dedicated to Indo-European studies, especially Indo-European philology) are William Jones, Rasmus Rask, Franz Bopp, Friedrich Schlegel, Jakob Grimm, Georges Dumézil, and Ferdinand de Saussure;, Émile Benveniste, Jerzy Kuryłowicz, André Martinet, Winfred P. Lehmann, Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze and among Spanish speakers Francisco García Ayuso, Antonio Tovar, Francisco Rodríguez Adrados and Francisco Villar Liébana.

As a consequence of the different use that can be given to the concept (scientific or pseudoscientific), very different institutions bear the name of "Indo-European studies":

The Journal of Indo-European studies (‘Review of Indo-European Studies’), since 1973.

Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture ("Encyclopaedia de la cultura indoeuropea"), 1979.

The Institut d'études indo-européennes (‘Instituto de estudios indoeuropeos’) is a university institution of the University of Lyon III, which publishes the journal Etudes indo-européennes since 1982.

The Circle of Indo-European Studies is a Spanish neo-Nazi organization.

Criticism

The philologist Giovanni Semerano dedicated his life to tracing the origins of European languages and claims that the Indo-European hypothesis is implausible.^{[citation needed]} In his works The origins of European culture and The fable of the Indo-European criticize ideologies that may favor racism. For Semerano, the Indo-European theory is a hypothesis kept alive to serve an ideology defined as ethnoracist, socioclassist, and caste. However, this position is totally marginal in both archeology and linguistics. After examining several thousand terms from the so-called Indo-European languages, he claims to have located their correspondence in the lexicon of the ancient Mesopotamian languages. He compares European and Mediterranean anthroponyms, place names, hydronyms, theonyms and ethnonyms, and raises relationships and correspondences with ancient words in Akkadian (Semitic language) and Sumerian (language isolate). His proposals have no linguistic or historical support, according to existing knowledge.

The philosopher Enrique Dussel develops throughout his extensive work the motivations to perpetuate an idea, which for him is a myth. In his work, he explains how the "ideology" Prussian in relation to the "Indo-European", which situates the history of Asia as a prehistory of Europe, makes it possible to directly unify classical Greek culture with German culture and to shape a racist thought: the "Aryan& #3. 4;.

Martin Bernal proposes that Friedrich Schlegel inaugurated this movement in 1803. In his work "Black Athena, the Afro-Asian roots of classical civilization" he says that:

Winckelmann was the initiator, Goethe the consummer, Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his linguistic, historical and educational writings, the theorist. Finally, Humboldt's ideas gained practical effect when he became a Minister of Education of Prussia and founded the new University of Berlin and the new Humanistic Gymnasium.