Number 205 | August 24, 2012
Researchers identify present day Turkey as origin of Indo-European languages
A new study identified present-day Turkey as the homeland of the Indo-European language family.
The international research team, led by Quentin Atkinson, at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, used computational methods to analyze words from more than 100 ancient and contemporary languages, as well as geographical and historical data. By doing so, the scientists say they have pinned down the origin, about 8,000 years ago, of the largest global language to Anatolia, present-day Turkey.
The results, published in Friday’s issue of the magazine Science, indicate that Indo-European languages spread with the expansion of agriculture from Anatolia, beginning 8,000 to 9,500 years ago.
The Indo-European language family comprises of more than 400 tongues including English, Persian and Hindi. The languages are spoken on every continent by a total of 3 billion people.
