Why does roughly half the world’s population speak Indo-European languages? A new book seeks answers

“Nor can we reasonably doubt, how degenerate and abased so ever the Hindus may now appear, that in some early age they were splendid in arts and arms, happy in government, wise in legislation, and eminent in various knowledge.” Speaking to the small group of British colonial officials who made up the Asiatic Society of Calcutta in February 1786, the president of the group, William Jones, went on to make some surprising claims about Sanskrit, the ancient language of India.

The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exqui- sitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philosopher could ex- amine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celt- ick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.

Jones postulated that the family...

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