Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language

and the people who contributed to that history.

In the last episode, we looked at how a British judge in India helped to discover the oldest

known ancestor of English, the ancient Indo-European language.

In this episode, we'll look more closely at the Indo-European family of languages and

how English fits into that family.

But before we look at the Indo-European language family in detail, let me emphasize the importance

of beginning a history of English with this ancient language, the language which eventually

led to English and most of the other European languages.

You might be surprised at how similar many of the words in the original Indo-European

language were to the words we use in modern English.

Now no one knows for certain how the original Indo-European words were pronounced, but

some of the words which have been reconstructed in this language appear to be very similar

to their modern English equivalents.

Oxen was uxen.

Mother was mater.

One was oinus.

Six was swix.

Seven was septum.

There was bear.

And apple was abel.

But this is about more than just some similar words.

...