What does Indo-European mean?
Definitions for Indo-European
ˈɪn doʊˌyʊər əˈpi ənin·do-eu·ro·pean
This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word Indo-European.
Princeton's WordNet
Aryan, Indo-Europeannoun
a member of the prehistoric people who spoke Proto-Indo European
Indo-European, Indo-European language, Indo-Hittiteadjective
the family of languages that by 1000 BC were spoken throughout Europe and in parts of southwestern and southern Asia
Indo-European, Indo-Germanicadjective
of or relating to the Indo-European language family
Indo-European, Indo-Aryan, Aryanadjective
of or relating to the former Indo-European people
"Indo-European migrations"
Wiktionary
Indo-Europeannoun
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.
Indo-Europeanadjective
Of or relating to the languages originally spoken in Europe and Western Asia.
Indo-Europeanadjective
Of or relating to the hypothetical parent language of the Indo-European language family. Also called Proto-Indo-European and abbreviated PIE.
Indo-Europeannoun
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.
Indo-Europeannoun
Proto-Indo-European: the hypothetical parent language of the Indo-European language family.
Wikipedia
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, and Spanish, have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, of which there are eight groups with languages still alive today: Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic; and another nine subdivisions that are now extinct. Today, the individual Indo-European languages with the most native speakers are English, Hindi–Urdu, Spanish, Bengali, French, Russian, Portuguese, German, and Punjabi, each with over 100 million native speakers; many others are small and in danger of extinction. In total, 46% of the world's population (3.2 billion people) speaks an Indo-European language as a first language — by far the highest of any language family. There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to an estimate by Ethnologue, with over two-thirds (313) of them belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch.All Indo-European languages are descended from a single prehistoric language, linguistically reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic to Early Bronze Age. The geographical location where it was spoken, the Proto-Indo-European homeland, has been the object of many competing hypotheses; the academic consensus supports the Kurgan hypothesis, which posits the homeland to be the Pontic–Caspian steppe in what is now Ukraine and southern Russia, associated with the Yamnaya culture and other related archaeological cultures during the 4th millennium BC to early 3rd millennium BC. By the time the first written records appeared, Indo-European had already evolved into numerous languages spoken across much of Europe, South Asia, and part of Western Asia. Written evidence of Indo-European appeared during the Bronze Age in the form of Mycenaean Greek and the Anatolian languages of Hittite and Luwian. The oldest records are isolated Hittite words and names — interspersed in texts that are otherwise in the unrelated Akkadian language, a Semitic language — found in texts of the Assyrian colony of Kültepe in eastern Anatolia dating to the 20th century BC. Although no older written records of the original Proto-Indo-European population remain, some aspects of their culture and their religion can be reconstructed from later evidence in the daughter cultures. The Indo-European family is significant to the field of historical linguistics as it possesses the second-longest recorded history of any known family, after the Afroasiatic family in the form of the pre-Arab Egyptian language and the Semitic languages. The analysis of the family relationships between the Indo-European languages, and the reconstruction of their common source, was central to the development of the methodology of historical linguistics as an academic discipline in the 19th century. The Indo-European family is not known to be linked to any other language family through any more distant genetic relationship, although several disputed proposals to that effect have been made.
ChatGPT
indo-european
Indo-European refers to a family of languages originating in Eurasia that includes most of the languages of Europe, as well as many languages of Southwest Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. It also refers to the hypothetical prehistoric people who spoke this language and their cultural and ethnic descendants. The Indo-European languages are spoken by almost half of the world's population today. The term Indo-European is primarily used in linguistics, anthropology, and archeology.
Webster Dictionary
Indo-Europeanadjective
aryan; -- applied to the languages of India and Europe which are derived from the prehistoric Aryan language; also, pertaining to the people or nations who speak these languages; as, the Indo-European or Aryan family
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
Indo-European
in′dō-ū-rō-pē′an, adj. a term applied to the family of languages variously called Aryan, Japhetic, Sanscritic, Indo-Germanic, generally classified into seven great branches—viz. Indic, Iranian or Persic, Celtic, Greek, Italic, Slavo-Lettic, Teutonic.
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
Indo-European
an epithet applied to a family of the human race with the languages of its several members descended from the Aryans, and found dispersed over an area including the better part of India and Europe.
Matched Categories
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology
The numerical value of Indo-European in Chaldean Numerology is: 2
Pythagorean Numerology
The numerical value of Indo-European in Pythagorean Numerology is: 2
References
Translation
Find a translation for the Indo-European definition in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Word of the Day
Would you like us to send you a FREE new word definition delivered to your inbox daily?
Citation
Use the citation below to add this definition to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Indo-European." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/Indo-European>.
Discuss these Indo-European definitions with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In