Proto by Laura Spinney
*A GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, PROSPECT AND WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2025*
'The fascinating story of ancient words … new revelations await' The Guardian
'A magisterial feat' New Scientist
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One ancient language transformed our world. This is its story.
Star. Stjarna. Stare. Thousands of miles apart, people look up at the night sky and use the same word to describe what they see.
Listen to these English, Icelandic and Iranic words and you can hear echoes of one of the most extraordinary journeys in humanity’s past. All three of these languages – and hundreds more – share a single ancient ancestor.
Five millennia ago, in a mysterious Big Bang of its own, this proto tongue exploded, 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. With her we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the Silk Roads and the Hindu Kush. We follow in the footsteps of nomads and monks, Amazon warriors and lion kings – the ancient peoples who spread these tongues far and wide. In the present, Spinney meets the linguists, archaeologists and geneticists racing to recover this lost world. What they have discovered 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.
'Thought-provoking … A lively and fascinating account of how these languages split from their root, developed in different ways, mingled with each other, crossed tracks, flourished and diedI loved it!'
David Bellos, author of Is That a Fish in your Ear?
'Formidably researched but lightly written, I put down this book with the pleasurable sense that the world around me had become a little stranger and richer.'
Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time
'Proto is a real detective story told with a compelling combination of academic rigour, human interest, vivid description, and personal biography. A tour de force.'
David Crystal, author of A Date with Language
'Truly fascinating. This beautifully researched and written book is about far more than language; it is a history of the world in microcosm, drawing together a diversity of subjects from genetics and religion to warfare and boozing. I highly recommend this wholly absorbing book.'
Douglas Preston, author of #1 New York Times bestselling The Lost City of the Monkey God
‘Hooray for a book where the author's curiosity, diligence, and literary craft gets it all down – the language, the archaeology, the DNA – in what will stand as the go-to source for a generation at least.’
John McWhorter, author of New York Times bestselling Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter
‘Six millennia ago, Proto-Indo-European was just one dialect among the many spoken by the nomadic peoples who roamed Eurasia. Laura Spinney’s erudite and highly entertaining text is full of refreshing new insights as she tells the fascinating and romantic story of this dialect that spread across the world.’
Professor Peter Trudgill FBA
PRAISE FOR PALE RIDER
'Not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past'
Guardian
'Magisterial'
Observer
‘Weaves together global history and medical science to great effect … Riveting’
Sunday Times
'Impressive … packed with fascinating, quirky detail'
Nature
'Wonderfully absorbing'
BBC History Magazine
Laura Spinney is a science journalist and writer. She is the author of the celebrated Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World. Her writing on science has appeared in National Geographic, Nature, The Guardian and The Atlantic, among others. Born in the UK, she lives in Paris.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780008626525 |
| ISBN 10 | 0008626529 |
| Title | Proto |
| Author | Laura Spinney |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Year published | 2025-04-24 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |