A new book sets out to trace the roots of modern languages back to one ancient tongue

When Germanic was first caught in the candle flame of writing, in the second century CE, there was only one runic script and one Germanic language. That language was spoken in a relatively compact area centred on the Jutland peninsula, extending southwards towards the Alps, and it had yet to fragment. Linguists consider that it was still very close to Proto-Germanic. They disagree as to when Proto-Germanic was born (most say 500 BCE, a few put it as early as 2000 BCE), but the prevailing view is that it developed out of dialects that arrived in the region with the first Corded Ware warbands.

Italic and Celtic looked quite different at the moment they were first written down. The Italic languages had already diverged into Latin, Oscan, Umbrian and possibly Venetic – a language which, as its name suggests, was spoken in the north-eastern corner of the modern country, around Venice. Since no early Italic inscriptions have been found outside that country, the parent language, Proto-Italic, is thought to have been born in or close to it. Its date of birth is usually fixed, rather loosely, at sometime before 1000 BCE.

Celtic was also mature by the time it was etched into stone, but...

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