The Paleo-European languages, or Old European languages, are the mostly unknown languages that were spoken in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

prior to the spread of the

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, Dutc ...

and Uralic families caused by the Bronze Age invasion from the Eurasian steppe of pastoralists whose descendant languages dominate the continent today. Today, the vast majority of European populations speak Indo-European languages, but until the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

, it was the opposite, with Paleo-European languages of non-Indo-European affiliation dominating the linguistic landscape of Europe. The term Old European languages is also often used more narrowly to refer only to the unknown languages of the first Neolithic European farmers in

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

(the Balkan Peninsula), Southern, Central and Western Europe, who emigrated from

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

around 8000–6000 BC, excluding unknown languages of various European hunter gatherers who were eventually absorbed by farming populations by the late

Neolithic Age The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

. A similar term, Pre-Indo-European, is used to refer to the disparate languages mostly displaced by speakers of

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

as they migrated out of their ''Urheimat''. This term thus includes certain Paleo-European languages along with many others spoken in

West Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

, and

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

before the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their descendants arrived.

Traces of lost Paleo-European languages

The prehistoric Paleolithic and Mesolithic modern human hunter-gatherer Paleo-European languages and Neolithic Anatolian and European farmer languages are not attested in writing (but see

Old European script Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Mai ...

for a set of undeciphered signs that were used in the

Vinča culture The Vinča culture (), also known as Turdaș culture or Turdaș–Vinča culture, is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southeast Europe, dated to the period 5700–4500 BC or 5300–4700/4500 BC.. Named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo ...

, which may or may not have been a writing system). The only sources for some of them are place names and especially river names that are found all over central and western Europe, and possibly

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

s in some Indo-European languages now spoken there.

Attested Paleo-European languages and reconstructed substrates

Paleohispanic languages

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

(Euskara) – the only surviving language ** Aquitanian – A close relative to, or a direct ancestor of, Modern Basque. **

Proto-Basque Proto-Basque ( eu, aitzineuskara; es, protoeuskera, protovasco; french: proto-basque), or Pre-Basque, is the reconstructed predecessor of the Basque language before the Roman conquests in the Western Pyrenees. Background The first linguist wh ...

* Iberian – Perhaps a relative to Aquitanian and Basque: maybe even ancestral to both, but not confirmed. * Tartessian – Unclassified: possibly related to Iberian, if not related to Indo-European. Other Paleohispanic languages can only be identified indirectly through

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

anthroponym Anthroponymy (also anthroponymics or anthroponomastics, from Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος ''anthrōpos'' / 'human', and ὄνομα ''onoma'' / 'name') is the study of ''anthroponyms'', the proper names of human beings, both individual and co ...

s or

theonym A theonym (from Greek ''theos'' (Θεός), "god"'','' attached to ''onoma'' (ὄνομα), "name") is the proper name of a deity. Theonymy, the study of divine proper names, is a branch of onomastics (the study of the etymology, history, and u ...

s cited by

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

sources. Most inscriptions were found written in the Phoenician or

alphabets. Little or no evidence of paleo-alphabets or

hieroglyph A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...

ics is found today; the little material that exists is mostly indecipherable.

Paleo-European languages of Italy

Tyrsenian languages Tyrsenian (also Tyrrhenian or Common Tyrrhenic), named after the Tyrrhenians (Ancient Greek, Ionic: ''Tyrsenoi''), is a proposed extinct family of closely related ancient languages put forward by linguist Helmut Rix (1998), which consists of th ...

Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy *Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization **Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities ** Etrusca ...

– in northern and central Italy **

Raetic Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th up until the 1st century BC, which wer ...

– in northern Italy and Austria ** Lemnian – in Aegean area *

Camunic The Camunic language is an extinct language that was spoken in the 1st millennium BC in the Valcamonica and the Valtellina in Northern Italy, both in the Central Alps. The language is sparsely attested to an extent that makes any classification ...

Paleo-Sardinian language Paleo-Sardinian, also known as Proto-Sardinian or Nuragic, is an extinct language, or perhaps set of languages, spoken on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia by the ancient Sardinian population during the Nuragic era. Starting from the Roman ...

– possibly related to the extinct native Iberian language of the

Iberian peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

* Ligurian *

North Picene language North Picene, also known as North Picenian or Northern Picene, is a supposed ancient language, which may have been spoken in part of central-eastern Italy. The evidence for the language consists of four inscriptions dating from the 1st millennium ...

Sicanian language The Sicani (Ancient Greek Σῐκᾱνοί ''Sikānoí'') or Sicanians were one of three ancient peoples of Sicily present at the time of Phoenician and Greek colonization. The Sicani dwelt east of the Elymians and west of the Sicels, having, ...

Paleo-European languages of the Aegean area

Pre-Greek substrate The Pre-Greek substrate (or Pre-Greek substratum) consists of the unknown pre-Indo-European language(s) spoken in prehistoric Greece before the coming of the Proto-Greek language in the Greek peninsula during the Bronze Age. It is possible that ...

Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...

Eteocretan Eteocretan ( from grc-gre, Ἐτεόκρητες, Eteókrētes, lit. "true Cretans", itself composed from ἐτεός ''eteós'' "true" and Κρής ''Krḗs'' "Cretan") is the pre-Greek language attested in a few alphabetic inscriptions of anc ...

may be a descendant of Minoan, but this is uncertain *

Cypro-Minoan The Cypro-Minoan syllabary (CM) is an undeciphered syllabary used on the island of Cyprus during the late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1050 BC). The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by Arthur Evans in 1909 based on its visual similarity to Linear A on M ...

Eteocypriot Eteocypriot is an extinct pre-Indo-European language that was spoken in Cyprus by the pre-Hellenic population until the Iron Age. The name means "true" or "original Cypriot" parallel to Eteocretan, both of which names are used by modern scholars ...

may be a descendant of Cypro-Minoan * Language of the

Phaistos Disc The Phaistos Disc (also spelled Phaistos Disk, Phaestos Disc) is a disk of fired clay from the Minoan palace of Phaistos on the island of Crete, possibly dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (second millennium BC). The disk is about ...

, possibly one of the above

North Europe

Germanic substrate hypothesis The Germanic substrate hypothesis attempts to explain the purportedly distinctive nature of the Germanic languages within the context of the Indo-European languages. Based on the elements of Common Germanic vocabulary and syntax which do not seem ...

* Britain and Ireland **

Goidelic substrate hypothesis The Goidelic substrate hypothesis refers to the hypothesized language or languages spoken in Ireland before the Iron Age arrival of the Goidelic languages. Hypothesis of non-Indo-European languages Ireland was settled, like the rest of norther ...

Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate refers to substratum loanwords from unidentified non-Indo-European and non-Uralic languages that are found in various Finno-Ugric languages, most notably Sami. The presence of Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate in Sami language ...

** Pre-Sami substrate(s) – one or more substrate languages underlying the Sami languages, perhaps based on geographical location ** Palaeo-Laplandic ** Pre-Finnic substrate – underlies the development of Proto-Finnic; possibly related to the substrate in Sami

Other

* Vasconic substratum hypothesis * Albanian substratum hypothesis – possibly related to the substrate in Greek Sometimes

Caucasian languages The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows th ...

are also included in Paleo-European, but the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

region is often considered to be a natural barrier or border region between Asia and Europe.

Neolithic

There is no direct evidence of the languages spoken in the Neolithic. Paleolinguistic attempts to extend the methods of

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

to the Stone Age have little academic support.

Donald Ringe Donald "Don" Ringe () is an American linguist and Indo-Europeanist. Ringe graduated from University of Kentucky and then received a Master of Philosophy in Linguistics as a Marshall Scholar from the University of Oxford. He received Ph.D in lin ...

, criticizing scenarios that envision only a small number of Neolithic language families spread over huge areas of Europe, has argued on general principles of

language geography Language geography is the branch of human geography that studies the geographic distribution of language(s) or its constituent elements. Linguistic geography can also refer to studies of how people talk about the landscape. For example, toponymy i ...

applying to "tribal" pre-state societies, and the scant remains of non-Indo-European languages attested in ancient inscriptions, that Neolithic Europe must have been a place of great linguistic diversity, with many

language families A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...

having no recoverable linguistic links to one another, much like western North America before European colonisation. Discussion of hypothetical languages spoken in the European Neolithic is divided into two topics:

Indo-European languages 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, Dutc ...

and "Pre-Indo-European" languages. Early Indo-European languages are usually assumed to have reached Europe in the

Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...

or early

, with the

Yamnaya The Yamnaya culture or the Yamna culture (russian: Ямная культура, ua, Ямна культура lit. 'culture of pits'), also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archa ...

Corded Ware The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between ca. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Chalcolithic, Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture en ...

Beaker culture The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the Inverted bell, inverted-bell beaker (archaeology), beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the E ...

s (see also

Kurgan hypothesis The Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory, Kurgan model, or steppe theory) is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and par ...

for related discussions). The

Anatolian hypothesis The Anatolian hypothesis, also known as the Anatolian theory or the sedentary farmer theory, first developed by British people, British Archaeology, archaeologist Colin Renfrew in 1987, proposes that the dispersal of Proto-Indo-Europeans origina ...

postulates arrival of Indo-European languages with the early Neolithic. Conversely, the Kurgan hypothesis maintains that the Indo-European languages arrived in Europe no earlier than the Bronze Age, which is consistent with the findings of genome-wide analysis research published in 2015. Old European hydronymy is taken by

Hans Krahe Hans Krahe (7 February 1898 – 25 June 1965) was a German philologist and linguist, specializing over many decades in the Illyrian languages. He was born in Gelsenkirchen. Work Between 1936 and 1946 he was a professor at the University of W ...

to be the oldest reflection of the early presence of Indo-European in Europe. Theories of "Pre-Indo-European" languages in Europe are built on scant evidence. Basque is a candidate for a descendant of such a language, but since Basque is a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...

, there is no comparative evidence to build upon. Vennemann nevertheless postulates a "

Vasconic The Vasconic languages (from Latin 'Basque') are a putative family of languages that includes Basque and the extinct Aquitanian language. The extinct Iberian language is sometimes putatively included. The concept of the Vasconic languages is ...

" family, which he supposes had co-existed with an "Atlantic" or "Semitidic" (i.e., para- Semitic) group. The theory, however, is rejected by mainstream linguists. Another candidate is the

, which would have given rise to

and

in the Iron Age. It cannot be ruled out that there were several different language families already in the Neolithic period. In the north, a similar scenario to Indo-European is thought to have occurred, with

Uralic languages The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...

expanding in from the east. In particular, while the

Sami languages Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...

of the indigenous

Sami people Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...

belong in the Uralic family, they show considerable substrate influence, which is thought to represent one or more extinct older languages. The ancestors of Sami are estimated to have adopted a Uralic language less than 2500 years ago. Some traces of indigenous languages of the Baltic area have been suspected in the

Finnic languages The Finnic (''Fennic'') or more precisely Balto-Finnic (Balto-Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Baltic Fennic) languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 mi ...

as well, but they are much more modest. There are early loanwords from unidentified non-Indo-European languages in other Uralic languages of Europe, as well.

References

Sources

* * * *