I’ve been reading about PIE and i’m confused. As I understand, it is assumed to be the language spoken by Europeans 6,000 years ago. No written record of the language has ever been found so the language has been reconstructed through seemingly arbitrary means. So, In all likeliness actual PIE sounded very different. What makes this language (as it exists today) useful? This is essentially a conlang that is too complicated to learn. What am I missing? Sorry if I’m coming off as negative. I find PIE both confusing and fascinating.

  • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
    2·
    12 hours ago

    Excellent!

    I’d hoped McWhorter’s course (Language Families of the World) would’ve gone into this kind of detail, but its more of a 100-level course exposing students to the concepts and scale of language families.

    • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
      1·
      7 hours ago

      I have this book. It’s by no means a bad book; it’s a great starting point, the info there seems to be well researched, and the main focus seems to be on the language diversity attested around the world. But yes, if you’re looking for depth it feels like missing stuff. (It doesn’t even mention the Macro-Ge and Tupi families ;_; )