Proto : How One Ancient Language Went Global

One ancient language transformed our world. This is its story.Star. Stjarna. Setareh. Thousands of miles apart humans look up at the night sky and use the same word to describe what they see.Listen to these English Icelandic and Iranian words and you can hear echoes of one of history's most unlikely miraculous journeys. For all of these languages – and hundreds more – share a single ancient source.In a mysterious Big Bang of its own this proto tongue exploded outwards forming new worlds as it spread east and west. Today nearly half of humanity speaks an Indo-European language. How did this happen?In Proto acclaimed journalist Laura Spinney sets off to find out. Travelling over the steppe and the silk roads she follows in the footsteps of nomads and monks Amazon warriors and lion kings – the ancient peoples who spread their words far and wide. In the present Spinney meets the scientists archaeologists and linguists racing to reanimate this lost world. What they have learned has vital lessons for our modern age as people and their languages are on the move again.Proto is a revelatory portrait of world history in its own words.