Proto: How One Accident Language Went Global | Laura Spinney

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney is an ambitious attempt to trace the story of Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a language never written down, and its legacy in over 400 modern tongues. Spinney weaves together archaeological, linguistic, and genetic research in the service of a narrative that seeks both to entertain and to enlighten. The book’s scope is considerable: it takes the reader from the steppes north of the Black Sea through migrations, trade, myth, and cultural exchange, showing how the speakers of PIE left traces in language, culture, and DNA.

Spinney’s strengths lie in her ability to humanise complex science. She brings to life nomadic herders, metallurgists, traders, and linguists, and she helps readers feel the mystery that surrounds a reconstructed past. Her prose is clear, and her sense of curiosity is infectious. She does less well when the subject enters technical linguistic territory: there are some factual uncertainties, occasional simplifications, and places where the tension between what is reasonably known and what is speculative becomes strained.

Another virtue of the book is its timeliness. With new genetic and archaeological findings constantly reshaping our picture of early human migrations and cultural contact, Spinney’s work serves as a state-of-the-art synthesis, at least as of its writing. For readers new to this territory, “Proto” offers a compelling entry point. Those already versed in Indo-European studies or historical linguistics may find some of the treatment familiar or occasionally frustrating in its looseness of detail.

Overall, Proto is an engaging, provocative work. It may not settle all academic debates, nor does it pretend to, but it does succeed in making PIE’s story both accessible and vivid. For general readers curious about how language, migration, and culture have intertwined through millennia, this book is very worthwhile.