The pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe,

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

Ancient Iran The history of Iran (also known as Name of Iran, Persia) is intertwined with Greater Iran, which is a socio-cultural region encompassing all of the areas that have witnessed significant settlement or influence exerted by the Iranian peoples and ...

and Southern Asia before the arrival of speakers of

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

. The oldest Indo-European language texts are Hittite and date from the 19th century BC in

Kültepe Kültepe ( Turkish: ), also known under its ancient name Kaneš (Kanesh, sometimes also Kaniš/Kanish) or Neša (Nesha), is an archaeological site in Kayseri Province, Turkey. It was already a major settlement at the beginning of the 3rd mille ...

(modern eastern

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

), and while estimates vary widely, the spoken Indo-European languages are believed to have developed at the latest by the 3rd millennium BC (see Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses). Thus, the pre-Indo-European languages must have developed earlier than or, in some cases, alongside the Indo-European languages that ultimately displaced almost all of them. A handful of the pre-Indo-European languages are still extant: in Europe,

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 ...

retains a localised strength, with fewer than a million

native speakers A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongue'' refers ...

, but the

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages are a language family, family of languages spoken by 250 million people, primarily in South India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan, with pockets elsewhere in South Asia. The most commonly spoken Dravidian l ...

remain very widespread in the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

, with over 250 million native speakers (the four major languages being Telugu,

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

) and the Brahui that stretches into modern

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. In the Caucasus,

Northwest 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— ...

and

Northeast Caucasian languages The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or Vainakh-Daghestani, or sometimes Caspian languages (from the Caspian Sea, in contrast to ''Pontic languages'' for the Northwest Caucasian languages), is a langu ...

and

Kartvelian languages The Kartvelian languages ( ; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages Boeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Geor ...

are still intact, with the first having the least language security of the three pre-Indo-European Caucasian language groups. Some pre-Indo-European languages are attested only as linguistic substrates in Indo-European languages or in

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''wikt:toponym, 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 ...

s. In much of

Western Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...

(including

and

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

), the pre-Indo-European,

Hurrian The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurro-Urartian language, Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria (region) ...

/ Caucasian,

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...

, Dravidian and language isolates have survived to the present day, although

Elamite Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Scythic, Median, Amardian, Anshanian and Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was recorded in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite i ...

has been entirely supplanted.

Terminology

Before

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, all the unclassified languages of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

were commonly referred to as ''Asianic languages'', and the term encompassed several languages that were later found to be Indo-European (such as Lydian), and others (such as Hurro-Urartian, Hattic,

, Kassite, Colchian and Sumerian) which were classified as distinct pre-Indo-European language families or language isolates. In 1953, the linguist Johannes Hubschmid identified at least five pre-Indo-European language families in Western Europe: Eurafrican, which covered North Africa, Italy, Spain and France; Hispano-Caucasian, which replaced Eurafrican and stretched from Northern Spain to the

Caucasus Mountains The Caucasus Mountains * * Azerbaijani: , * * * * * * * * * * * is a mountain range at the intersection of Asia and Europe. Stretching between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, they are surrounded by the Caucasus region ...

; Iberian, which was spoken by most of Spain prior to the Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula; Libyan, which was spoken mostly in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

but encroached into

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

; and Etruscan, which was spoken in Northern Italy. The term pre-Indo-European is not universally accepted, as some linguists maintain the idea of the relatively late arrival of the speakers of the unclassified languages to Europe, possibly even after the Indo-European languages, and so prefer to speak about non-Indo-European languages. The newer term '' Paleo-European languages'' is proposed as a preferable description, but is not applicable to the languages that predated or coexisted with Indo-European outside Europe.

Surviving languages

These pre-Indo-European languages have survived to modern times:Peter R. Kitson, "Reconstruction, typology and the original home of the Indo-Europeans", in (ed.) Jacek Fisiak, ''Linguistic Reconstruction and Typology'', Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1997, p. 191. * in the

, the

Munda languages The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about eleven million people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic langu ...

(a branch of the

Austroasiatic languages The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spe ...

, Nihali, Kusunda, Vedda and

Burushaski Burushaski (; , ) is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, who predominantly reside in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. There are also a few hundred speakers of this language in northern Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu ...

. * in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

, the Kartvelian, Northeast Caucasian, Northwest Caucasian which together include Georgian, Abkhaz, Circassian, Chechen, Ingush, Dagestani, etc. * in the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

and

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. * in Northern Eurasia, the Paleosiberian languages.

Languages that contributed substrates to Indo-European languages

Examples of suggested or known substrate influences on specific Indo-European languages include the following: *Pre-Anatolian: **

Hattic language Hattic, or Hattian, was a non-Indo-European agglutinative language spoken by the Hattians in Asia Minor in the 2nd millennium BC. Scholars call the language "Hattic" to distinguish it from Hittite, the Indo-European language of the Hittite Emp ...

** Colchian ** Akkadian (aka Assyrian and Babylonian) *Pre-Armenian: ** Hurro-Urartian languages **

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

(

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic Suret ( Help:IPA for Aramaic, �suːrɪtʰor Help:IPA for Aramaic, �suːrɪθ, also known as Assyrian, refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by Christians, namely Assyrian people, Assyrians.Nordhoff, Sebast ...

and Syriac) * Substrate in Vedic Sanskrit, proposed sources for which include: ** Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (possible source of Sanskrit vocabulary, language not attested) ** Harappan language (not attested in readable script; see

Indus script The Indus script, also known as the Harappan script and the Indus Valley script, is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilisation. Most inscriptions containing these symbols are extremely short, making it difficult to judge whe ...

) **

Lullubi Lullubi, Lulubi (: ''Lu-lu-bi'', : ''Lu-lu-biki'' "Country of the Lullubi"), more commonly known as Lullu, were a group of Bronze Age tribes of Hurrian and Semitic languages, Semitic origin who existed and disappeared during the 3rd millennium BC ...

language ** Vedda language ** Burushaski language **

** Nihali language **

*Substrates to early undifferentiated or partly-differentiated Indo-European in Western Europe: ** Old European hydronymy (possibly Indo-European, as originally thought by Krahe) ** Vasconic substrate hypothesis **

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

Pre-Greek substrate The pre-Greek substrate (or substratum) consists of the unknown pre-Greek language or languages (either Pre-Indo-European languages, Pre-Indo-European or other Indo-European languages) spoken in prehistoric Greece prior to the emergence of the Pr ...

languages, which may have included: **

Minoan language The Minoan language is the language (or languages) of the ancient Minoan civilization of Crete written in the Cretan hieroglyphs and later in the Linear A syllabary. As the Cretan hieroglyphs are undeciphered and Linear A only partly deciphered ...

(see also

Linear A Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 BC to 1450 BC. Linear A was the primary script used in Minoan palaces, palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It evolved into Linear B, ...

Cretan hieroglyphs Cretan hieroglyphs are a hieroglyphic writing system used in early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. They predate Linear A by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history. , t ...

) ** Eteocretan language (may have been a descendant of Minoan) ** Eteocypriot language (see also Cypro-Minoan script) * Pre-Germanic: **

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 ...

* Pre-Celtic languages: **Insular Celtic: *** Goidelic substrate hypothesis ***For the British Isles, see Celtic settlement of Great Britain and Ireland **Continental Celtic: ***

Paleohispanic languages The Paleo-Hispanic or Paleo-Iberian languages are the languages of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, excluding languages of foreign colonies, such as Greek in Emporion and Phoenician in Qart Hadast. After the Roman conquest of H ...

**** Vasconic languages ***** Proto-Basque *****

Aquitanian language The Aquitanian language was the language of the ancient Aquitani, a people living in Roman times between the Pyrenees, the Garonne river and the Atlantic Ocean. Epigraphic evidence for this language has also been found south of the Pyrenees, in ...

(often thought to be the direct ancestor of Basque) ****

Iberian language The Iberian language is the language of an indigenous western European people identified by Ancient Greece, Greek and ancient Rome, Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the pre-Migration Era ...

****

Tartessian language Tartessian is an extinct Paleo-Hispanic languages, Paleo-Hispanic language found in the Southwest Paleohispanic script, Southwestern inscriptions of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly located in the south of Portugal (Algarve and southern Alentejo), ...

(classification as Celtic has been proposed) *Pre-

Italic languages The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient Italic languages ...

: **

***

Etruscan language Etruscan ( ) was the language of the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria, in Etruria Padana and Etruria Campana in what is now Italy. Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventually superseded by it. Around 13,000 Etruscan epigraph ...

***

Raetic language Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a Tyrsenian languages, Tyrsenian 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 throug ...

(probably related to Etruscan) ** Camunic language (probably Raetic) **

Elymian language Elymian is the extinct language of the ancient Elymian people of western Sicily. Its characteristics are little known because of the extremely limited and fragmentary nature of the surviving texts. The origins of Elymian and its exact relation ...

(perhaps Indo-European) ** North Picene language ** Paleo-Sardinian language (also called Paleosardinian, Protosardic, Nuraghic language) ** Sicanian language Other propositions are generally rejected by modern linguists: * Atlantic (Semitic) languages

Attested languages

Languages attested in inscriptions include the following: * Tartessian * Iberian * Aquitanian * Etruscan *

Rhaetian The Rhaetian is the latest age (geology), age of the Triassic period (geology), Period (in geochronology) or the uppermost stage (stratigraphy), stage of the Triassic system (stratigraphy), System (in chronostratigraphy). It was preceded by the N ...

* Camunic * Lemnian * North Picene * Sicanian *

Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and Minoan art, energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The ruins of the Minoan pa ...

* Eteocretan * Eteocypriot * Hattic * Urartian *

* Kaskian * Gutian

Unattested but hypothesised languages

These languages are hypothesised to be related to pre-Indo-European: * Paleo-Sardinian * Paleo-Corsican

Later Indo-European expansion

Further, there have been replacements of Indo-European languages by others, most prominently of most of the

Celtic languages The Celtic languages ( ) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, descended from the hypothetical Proto-Celtic language. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, following Paul-Yve ...

by Germanic or Romance varieties because of Roman rule and the invasions of Germanic tribes. Also, however, languages replaced or engulfed by Indo-European in ancient times must be distinguished from languages replaced or engulfed by Indo-European languages in more recent times. In particular, the vast majority of the major languages spread by

colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...

have been Indo-European (the major exceptions being Arabic, Turkish and Mandarin Chinese), which has in the last few centuries led to superficially similar linguistic islands being formed by, for example,

indigenous languages of the Americas The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before the arrival of non-Indigenous peoples. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while many more are now e ...

(now surrounded by English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French), as well as of several

Uralic languages The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...

(such as Mordvin, Udmurt, Mari, Komi etc) and

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 t ...

(such as Circassian, Abkhaz, Nakh-Dagestanian languages etc) now surrounded by Russian. Many

creole languages A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable form of contact language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form (often a pidgin), and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fl ...

have also arisen based upon Indo-European colonial languages.

References

Bibliography

Archaeology and culture

* Anthony, David with Jennifer Y. Chi (eds., 2009). The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000–3500 BC. * Bogucki, Peter I. and Pam J. Crabtree (eds. 2004). Ancient Europe 8000 BC—1000 AD: An Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. * Gimbutas, Marija (1973). Old Europe c. 7000–3500 B.C.: the earliest European cultures before the infiltration of the Indo-European peoples. The Journal of Indo-European Studies 1/1-2. 1-20. * Tilley, Christopher (1996). An Ethnography of the Neolithic. Early Prehistoric Societies in Southern Scandinavia. Cambridge University Press.

Linguistic reconstructions

* Bammesberger, Alfred &

Theo Vennemann Theo Vennemann genannt Nierfeld (; born 27 May 1937) is a German historical linguist known for his controversial theories of a " Vasconic" and an " Atlantic" stratum in European languages, published since the 1990s. He was professor of Germa ...

, eds. ''Languages in Prehistoric Europe''. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 2003. * Blench, Roger, & Matthew Spriggs, eds. ''Archaeology and Language''. Vol. 1, ''Theoretical and Methodological Orientations''. London/NY: Routeledge, 1997. * Dolukhanov, Pavel M. “Archaeology and Languages in Prehistoric Northern Eurasia”, ''Japan Review'' 15 (2003): 175–186. https://web.archive.org/web/20110721072713/http://shinku.nichibun.ac.jp/jpub/pdf/jr/IJ1507.pdf * Gimbutas, Marija. ''The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization''. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989. * Greppin, John and T.L.Markey, eds. ''When Worlds Collide: The Indo-Europeans and the Pre-Indo-Europeans''. Ann Arbor: 1990. * Haarmann, H. “Ethnicity and language in the ancient Mediterranean”, in ''A companion to ethnicity in the ancient Mediterranean''. Edited by J. McInerney. Wiley Blackwell, 2014, pp. 17–33. * Kroonen, Guus (ed., 2024
Sub-Indo-European Europe: Problems, Methods, Results, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
* Lehmann, Winfred P. ''Pre-Indo-European''. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man. 2002. . * Mailhammer, Robert
“Diversity vs. Uniformity. Europe before the Arrival of Indo-European Languages”
in ''The Linguistic Roots of Europe: Origin and Development of European Languages''. Edited by Robert Mailhammer & Theo Vennemann. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2016. * “Pre-Indo-European”, in ''Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe''. Edited by Glanville Price. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. . * * Vennemann, Theo. Languages in Prehistoric Europe north of the Alps. https://www.scribd.com/doc/8670/Languages-in-prehistoric-Europe-north-of-the-Alps * Vennemann, Theo (2008). Linguistic reconstruction in the context of European prehistory. Transactions of the Philological Society. Volume 92, Issue 2, pages 215–284, November 1994 * Woodard, Roger D. (ed., 2008) Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press. * Woodard, Roger D. (2008) Ancient Languages of Europe. Cambridge University Press.

External links

*
Reconstructed migration of language families and archaeological cultures in Europe during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pre-Indo-European languages Language histories Prehistoric Europe Ancient Europe Historical linguistics Extinct languages