Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, with Laura Spinney
Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Why times can differ in your player
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sarenti. What if a single ancient language lay at the root of nearly half of the world's spoken tongues? In today's episode, acclaimed science writer and journalist Laura Spinney joins us to discuss her new book, Proto. how one ancient language went global.
In Proto, Spinney takes us deep into the mystery of Proto-Indo-European, a prehistoric language that no one alive has heard, yet whose echoes can be found in words spoken from Ireland to India. Joining Spinney in discussion is global historian Caroline Dodds Pannock. To retrace the paths of nomads, monks, warriors and kings across the Eurasian steppe, the Caucasus The Silk Roads and beyond. Let's join Caroline now with more.
Welcome to Intelligence Squared. I'm Caroline Dodds-Penek. I've had a chance to read Proto, which is a really fascinating, hugely sweeping book, covers an awful lot of time and space, and it's about the journey of this language, Proto-Indo-European. that you say shaped a lot of our world today and a lot of the languages that we are familiar with. What is it that first drew you to that subject?
We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (39 minutes, 6,580 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.
No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.