Abstract

Languages evolve over time, and by comparing languages it is possible to reconstruct languages spoken thousands of years before the advent of writing. The best studied of these reconstructed languages is called ‘Proto-Indo-European’ and is the ancestor of most of the languages spoken in Europe (except for Finnish, Hungarian and Basque) as well as the languages of Iran, Pakistan and northern India. In this talk, James Clackson will present different theories linguists and archaeologists have proposed about the speakers of Proto-Indo-European—where they lived, how they lived and why their language eventually came to dominate so much of Eurasia.

James Clackson is a member of the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. His latest book is ‘Language and Society in the Greek and Roman Worlds’ was published in 2015 by Cambridge University Press. Doors open 7.15 pm; meeting begins 7.30 pm