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Humans

The hunt for the birthplace of Indo-European languages

It’s incredibly tricky to pin down the origin of the language that led to the words spoken everywhere between Spain and India – and it’ll be even harder to be sure we’ve got it right

By Michael Marshall

8 April 2025

Afyonkarahisar, the capital of the central Anatolia region of Turkey

Daphnusia images/Shutterstock

This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month.

Every so often, I’m reminded of a truly startling fact. It is possible to travel from the UK, where I live, east through Europe into Ukraine and western Russia (maybe don’t do this bit), cross the Caspian Sea, then carry on east all the way to India – and always speak to people whose language belongs to the same family.

That’s…

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