This was well-researched and entertaining. The author introduces three schools of thought that will lead our exploration into the much-sought-after Proto-Indo-European language: linguistics, archeology, and genetics. It is important to remember that the author does not have certifications in these disciplines, but does do a good job of including experts in the field.

I really enjoy reading about historical and comparative linguistics. There was a lot of fascinating information in here, but it felt like more of a pop-sci interpretation of events rather than a fully realized hypothesis regarding Proto-Indo-European.

I think that “educated guesswork” and “controlled speculation” could be said of quite a few claims made and that the foundation of Spinney’s work is based on unconfirmed hypotheses. I think that Proto is a very important body of work that brings together the best and most modern scientific knowledge that we have regarding historical linguistics, archeology and genetics, but I am hesitant to accept Spinney’s hypothesis until further analysis and the test of time have completed their due.

The language born between Europe and Asia is what we call Proto-Indo-European. Today, it's the world’s largest language family. This book details how the language spoken by nearly half of humanity came to be.
I learned a lot while reading this book. I didn't realize how or why ancient ancestors moved from place to place, sometimes taking years to arrive at their destination.
The writing is a bit dry in places. And lack of puncuatation distracted me. However, the content offers an insightful look at why we speak the languages we do. I gained a greater appreciation for the folks who developed language over the centuries. As the author states, "Some argue that without language there is no reasoning, others that there is no consciousness. But besides the desire to reach out to strangers, there’s another one that has deep roots in us : the desire to belong to our own group."

Today, though there are thousands of languages spoken all over the world, nearly half the world’s population speaks, as one of their languages, a language that is a descendant of Proto-Indo-European, one of the five major language families (Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, Austronesian). Early well-known descendants of Proto-Indo-European were Sanskrit, ancient Greek, Latin and Norse. Thousands of languages and dialects later, contemporary language descendants include English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, the Slavic languages, and more. (But not Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian, or that orphan language Basque.)

Spinney grabs the reader right away with examples of Sanskrit words that are close to modern languages. Then it’s off to the Black Sea, more specifically the steppe of modern-day Ukraine, which she points to as the cradle of Proto-Indo-European. She posits that starting around 5,000 years ago the language spread, transplanting, integrating, and changing as hunter-gatherers and farmers came together, as armies moved in conquest, as traders sought new buyers and sellers, as receding glaciers opened up new land for use, until in only a thousand years, languages derived from Proto-Indo-European were spoken from as far north as Ireland to as far south as India.

While language development can be analyzed by comparing words and grammar, a major advancement in studies came through the ability to conduct analyses of ancient DNA. An electrifying part of the book is a scientist’s DNA analysis finding that two individuals, probably second cousins or first cousins once removed, lived over a thousand miles apart thousands of years ago. That’s an impressive move of peoples and languages at that time.

Here is how Spinney organizes her book:

Chapter 1: The Black Sea its world after the glaciers receded
Chapter 2: The radiation of Proto-Indo-European beyond its birthplace
Chapter 3: The Anatolian story
Chapter 4: The Tocharian story
Chapter 5: The Italic, Celtic and Germanic languages
Chapter 6: Eastward expansion, leading to the Indo-Iranian branch
Chapter 7: The Baltic and Slavic languages
Chapter 8: Armenian, Albanian, and Greek
Conclusion

The choice to organize the book by language groups makes sense. It does mean that Spinney has to revisit history over and over again, which can be a little confusing at times. It’s a well-researched book, very dense in facts and history, and she manages to cover a lot of ground in only 336 pages.

Proto is a fascinating deep dive into the origins of the Indo-European language family, blending history, linguistics, and archaeology in an engaging way. Laura Spinney does an excellent job making complex research accessible, taking readers on a journey through time and across continents. I especially enjoyed how she connected ancient languages to modern ones, showing their lasting influence. At times, the dense detail can be a bit overwhelming, but overall, it’s a compelling and insightful read for anyone interested in language and history.

Fascinating, well-researched book. In Proto, author Laura Spinney (with assists from the various other academicians she mentions by name throughout) takes a sweeping, multidisciplinary approach to historical linguistics, attempting to trace the origin, spread, and evolution of the vast Indo-European language family from its ancient beginnings through to modern times. Because of the sometimes meandering nature of the writing -- and the topic itself -- I occasionally had a hard time keeping track of which bits are solid fact (such as DNA analysis of human remains from different archaeological sites), which bits are widely-accepted points of agreement, and which bits are still mainly theoretical, but I was thoroughly engrossed and learned things I never knew I needed to know about the history of Eurasia. I've been both entertained and educated!

Are you looking for your next thought provoking read? Check out Proto by Laura Spinney. It makes you think.

It's been a long (long) time since I took a linguistics course, and it was interesting to read a book about the current multidisciplinary approaches to tracing the history of Proto-Indo-European. The connections between linguistics, archeology, and genetics are really cool to read about. The book is engaging and accessible enough for an interested lay reader, although I can't speak to how well or accurately Spinney explains the current state of the field. The hypotheses Spinney describes for relationships between and among various ancient and modern languages are fascinating.

That said, I desperately wished for some visuals—maps, a timeline, something to hang my understanding on other than the convoluted migrations and changes Spinney describes. At times, the writing seems to jump from topic to topic and location to location in a way that left me unsure of where we were geographically, temporally, or culturally. I also found myself wishing Spinney had spent more time talking about the researchers she spoke with—who are the people tracing these histories? What are their stories? That's a bit outside the scope of the book, but it might have humanized some of the research further.

I gave this review copy a good-faith try, but I had to give up. The author interrogates nothing in the fields she's reporting on; she just repeats likely sounding stories and tidbits as if they were reliable scientific findings. No anecdote is too good not to include. In addition, for a book on language, the writing is surprisingly awkward.

Linguistics is an endlessly fascinating topic, and deserves a writer who can really grapple with the material. Spinney is not that author.

This is an excellent book about a topic not too many people think about. In its own way it was very reflective. It made me give thoughts I would never have otherwise.