Wiktionary

Indo-European

See also: Indoeuropean

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Coined by English polymath Thomas Young in 1813, from Indo- +‎ European, relating to the geographical extremes in India and Europe (which was valid before the discovery of Tocharian languages in the early 20th century).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˌɪndəʊˌjʊəɹəˈpiːən/
  • Audio (Canada):(file)

Proper noun

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Indo-European

  1. A major language family which includes many of the native languages of Europe, Western Asia and India, with notable Indic, Iranian and European sub-branches.
  2. Proto-Indo-European: the hypothetical parent language of the Indo-European language family.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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Further reading

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Noun

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Indo-European (plural Indo-Europeans)

  1. (anthropology, archaeology, linguistics) A member of the original ethnolinguistic group hypothesized to have spoken Proto-Indo-European and thus to have been the ancestor for most of India and Western Eurasia.
    Synonyms: Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-European speaker
    • 1992, R.R. Sokal, N.L. Oden, B.A. Thomson, “Origins of the Indo-Europeans: genetic evidence”, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, volume 89, →DOI, →PMID:
      Two theories of the origins of the Indo-Europeans currently compete. M. Gimbutas believes that early Indo-Europeans entered southeastern Europe from the Pontic Steppes starting ca. 4500 B.C. and spread from there. C. Renfrew equates early Indo-Europeans with early farmers who entered southeastern Europe from Asia Minor ca. 7000 BC and spread through the continent.
    • 1997, J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams, “ALDER”, in Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, London, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, →ISBN, page 12:
      Thus, although at least one term for ‘alder’ can be reconstructed to PIE, the wide distribution of this tree prevents it from being diagnostic of the earlier location of the Indo-Europeans.
  2. A speaker of any Indo-European language (though especially an ancient one), or a member of an Indo-European culture, who is regarded as a continuation of the Proto-Indo-Europeans in terms of language, ancestry, or cultural affinity.
    • 1988, Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, “On the problem of an Asiatic original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans”, in T.L. Markey and John A.C. Greppin, editors, When Worlds Collide: The Indo-Europeans and the Pre-Indo-Europeans, Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, Inc., published 1990, →ISBN, page 6:
      To the same direction points a recent revelation made by Professor Henning who identifies the Gutians or Kutians and Tukres of the ancient Near East that occur in the cuneiform inscriptions of the end of the 3rd millennium B.C. with historical Kuchi-Tocharians, this being the earliest appearance of the Indo-Europeans in history (cf. W. Henning, the first Indo-Europeans in history, "Society and History." […]).
    • 2015 December 18, Mark Damen, “The Indo-European Dual”, in TEDxUSU‎[2] (video):
      We Indo-Europeans are crazy about three! We see the world as earth, sky, water. We see things as having a beginning, a middle, and an end. Do you want a third example? Sure you do—you're Indo-European!
  3. (rare) A European living in India or the Indies.
    • 2020, Sujit Sivasandaram, Waves Across the South, William Collins, published 2021, page 236:
      The sale of looted items persisted for a month, and quick profits were made by burghers and Indo-Europeans.
  4. (loosely, uncommon) A person of mixed European and Indian or Indonesian ancestry.

Usage notes

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  • The anthropological senses are an extension of the definition in linguistics.
  • In older sources, often little distinction was made between the earliest Indo-Europeans (i.e. Proto-Indo-Europeans) and their descendants, as the Indo-European expansions were commonly regarded as part of a continuous whole “invasion” or similar replacement event, during which Indo-European–speaking peoples remained ethnocuoturally similar long after their dispersal, a view that is now outdated. Also, the prefix Proto- only gradually became standard throughout the 20th century, leaving “Indo-European” as a somewhat dated relic from a time before the prefix. In modern academic settings, the use of Indo-European as a countable noun is less common and discouraged for these reasons.

Translations

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Adjective

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Indo-European (comparative more Indo-European, superlative most Indo-European)

  1. Of or relating to the family of languages originally spoken in Europe and Western Asia.
  2. Of or relating to the hypothetical parent language of the Indo-European language family.
    Synonyms: Proto-Indo-European, PIE (abbreviation)
  3. Of or relating to the hypothetical group of peoples that spread early Indo-European languages.
    • 2010, Robert S. P. Beekes, “κηρός”, in Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), volume I, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 690:
      As there is no evidence for Indo-European apiculture, we have to reckon with foreign origin for κηρός […].
  4. (loosely, uncommon) Of or relating to persons of mixed European and Indian or Indonesian ancestry.

Translations

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See also

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Further reading

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