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London: Indo-European
languages including English, French, German and Hindi originated
in Turkey 8,000 to 9,500 years ago, according to a study.
Scientists led by Remco Bouckaert from the University of Auckland,
New Zealand, traced the language group's origin to Anatolia, an
ancient region which is now much of Turkey.
This language family includes more than 400 languages and dialects
such as German, French, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Persian, Hindi
and ancient Greek.
All of them are believed to have evolved from a common ancestor,
the journal Science reported.
Experts think Indo-European languages spread out from the Middle
East along with agriculture.
Bouckaert's team traced the origins of these languages with the
help of a method borrowed from evolutionary biologists, according
to the Daily Mail.
Instead of comparing DNA from different species, researchers
looked at 'cognates' - which are words with a common origin.
An example is 'mother', which has the German counterpart 'mutter,'
Spanish equivalent 'madre' and Sanskrit's 'matri'.
The words are so similar that there must be a link in the
language's history rather than the comparison occurring by chance.
By modelling how hundreds of words evolved through time, the
researchers were able to pinpoint their birthplace in what is now
modern Turkey.
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