Proto-Indo-European language

Proto-Indo-European is a reconstructed language believed to represent the ancestral language from which all members of the Indo-European family of languages descend. Indo-European languages include the West Germanic, North Germanic, and Romance languages, as well as Latin, Greek and Sanskrit.

The first person to recognize the relationships between Indo-European languages (based on comparison of Greek, Latin and Sanskrit) was Sir William Jones in 1786. This article will discuss the characteristics of the reconstructed language.

• For the science that allows us to reconstruct such a language see Historical linguistics
• For a discussion of Proto-Indo-European ethnicity, see Proto-Indo-Europeans
• For a discussion of where these people originated, see ---

Grammar

Noun cases

Proto-Indo-European had eight noun cases (see Grammatical case).

• Of the nouns, there were three Grammatical numbers, Singular, Dual, and Plural; the dual may have referred to two of anything (as with Arabic) or a natural pair (as with gloves, shoes or eyeglasses, or a pair of jeans) as with Hebrew. And yes, a few languages have a Trial, which refers to three of something.

Sources

• Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, edited by James P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams; Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997; "Proto-Indo-European", pp. 458-470.