Indo-European

Meanings

1. A major language family which includes many of the native languages of Europe, Western Asia and India, with notable Indic, Iranian and European sub-branches.
2. Proto-Indo-European: the hypothetical parent language of the Indo-European language family.

1. A member of the original ethnolinguistic group hypothesized to have spoken Proto-Indo-European and thus to have been the ancestor for most of India and Western Eurasia.
2. A speaker of any Indo-European language (though especially an ancient one), or a member of an Indo-European culture, who is regarded as a continuation of the Proto-Indo-Europeans in terms of language, ancestry, or cultural affinity.
3. A European living in India or the Indies.
4. A person of mixed European and Indian or Indonesian ancestry.

1. Of or relating to the family of languages originally spoken in Europe and Western Asia.
2. Of or relating to the hypothetical parent language of the Indo-European language family.
3. Of or relating to the hypothetical group of peoples that spread early Indo-European languages.
4. Of or relating to persons of mixed European and Indian or Indonesian ancestry.

Etymology

Coined by English polymath Thomas Young in 1813, from Indo- + European, relating to the geographical extremes in India and Europe (which was valid before the discovery of Tocharian languages in the early 20th century).

Translations