The Indo-European languages are spoken by an estimated 3.4 billion people across Eurasia, and, since more recently, beyond. Indo-European is the world’s largest language family by number of native speakers. Indo-European languages spoken today include English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Russian, Polish, Farsi and Hindi. The recognised principal branches are: Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic, and two extinct branches, Anatolian and Tocharian. The founders of the family, and its first speakers, have recently been identified by researchers as pertaining to the Caucasus-Lower Volga lineage. Proto-Indo-European is estimated to have been spoken from 4500 BCE to 2500 BCE.
Previously, Proto-Indo-European, which was the original Indo-European language from which today’s members descend, was widely associated with the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Don’t be mistaken, the Yamnaya derived 80% of their ancestry from the CLV cline and probably spoke a variety of Proto-Indo-European. Famously, the Yamnaya were of mixed Eastern Hunter-Gatherer and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer ancestry. They are also known for their kurgan pit graves. Meanwhile, modern Europe is mostly of mixed Anatolian (via the Early European Farmers) and Yamnaya ancestry. However, the Yamnaya were not the original Proto-Indo-European speakers, something we can assume additionally because the Yamnaya themselves did not leave a genetic mark on Anatolians. Still, the Yamnaya almost definitely did identify as Caucasus-Lower-Volga-ites. Meanwhile, Anatolians do display connection to the CLV lineage. My probing has led me to the conclusion that the original Indo-Europeans called themselves this…
The Venetes or Wenetos! There are just so many names in historic Europe that can be traced back to the IE root *wen- (“to strive, to wish for, to love”) or *wendʰ– (“to wind, to turn), including Venice, the iconic Italian “Floating City”.
Early Indo-Europeans were still nomads or semi-nomads, but their culture is and was so important in shaping the world of today. Their tribal notion of imprinting yourself, in particular, has been carried forward with great success and is a very powerful notion even in today’s world. They were definitely influenced by the continuous existence of Anatolian-Early European Farmer / “Pre-Indo-European” / Early European / Epipalaeolithic Anatolian / Alarodian languages, which emerged nearby in Anatolia or its fringes over 10,000 years earlier. This is especially because AEEF speakers established some very important cultural precepts that are even more powerful in today’s world – as I claim here, AEEF could quite possibly be aligned with things like “the original classicism” and “the original *orniness”. In fact, this is an exceptional example of a critical overarching pattern of human history: society has developed continuously in accordance with successive phases of invention. At different points, different people have invented different things, even abstract angles on being alive, ushering in new epochs like that.
Necessarily, the Indo-European story started before they existed. They were good at carrying things forward in their own way, primitive and tribal compared to the Indo-Europeans domains of today. Why? Because their predecessors invented this abstract angle on being alive: trumping even for those who weren’t leaders. This is what I have theorised came directly before Indo-European in the Caucasus and its surroundings. At some point 10,000+ years prior to the birth of Indo-European, competitive spirits boiled over, even between closely related ethnicities, and led Caucasians (was it the Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers or their ancestors?) to invent this pioneering angle on being alive. It entails asserting yourself as doubling up over someone, be it via standing, strength, worth, beauty, or something else of your choice, and them being imprinted/forced to learn until either doing better or conceding, and ideally you “winning” over them. In the interim, what do you do? The Indo-Europeans’ Caucasian ancestors used it to build their brand of primitive prestige. Thirst for blood is also a major consequence of these developments.