Proto-Indo-European religion

Overview

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) religion is not a religion anyone practised under that name—no PIE text, inscription or image survives—but a reconstruction built by comparing the languages, and more cautiously the myths and rituals, of the many peoples descended from it, including speakers of Hittite, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Germanic, Sanskrit and Avestan, Slavic, Baltic, Armenian, Albanian and Tocharian languages.^{[1, 5]}

History

Discovering a lost language family 1786–1920s

In 1786 the British philologist Sir William Jones told the Asiatic Society of Bengal that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin showed similarities too systematic to be explained by chance or borrowing, and proposed a common, unrecorded parent language later confirmed to also include Germanic, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, Armenian, Albanian, Anatolian (chiefly Hittite) and Tocharian. Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European forms are conventionally written with an asterisk to show they are not directly attested in any surviving text—the reconstructed word for "god" or "deity," *deywo-s, is the ancestor of Latin deus, Greek dios and Sanskrit devah—and even this relatively reliable linguistic method usually establishes only how probable a reconstructed word is, not that it certainly existed.^{[2–3, 5–6]}

From language to the gods of a vanished people 19th century–present

Comparing myths, rituals and laws across far-flung descendant traditions is far riskier than comparing languages, since shared material can be hard to tell from independent invention or later borrowing; the most influential such attempt is that of the French scholar Georges Dumézil, who argued that Indo-European societies were ideologically organized into three classes—priests or sovereigns, warriors and producers—with myth describing this division as divinely ordained.^{[3, 7]}

Looking for a homeland 20th century–present

Scholars still debate where and when Proto-Indo-European was spoken: the most widely accepted view places its speakers among pastoralist communities of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, north of the Black and Caspian Seas, in the fifth or fourth millennium BCE, while other scholars argue instead for Neolithic Anatolia, many centuries earlier.^[4]

How we know

Words are safer evidence than myths

Comparing sounds and grammar is relatively secure, while comparing myths, rituals and social structures across its many far-flung descendant traditions is far less secure, and locating speakers in time and place remains genuinely disputed between the Pontic-Caspian steppe and Neolithic Anatolia.^{[1, 3–4]}

Glossary

Proto-Indo-European (PIE)

The unattested common ancestor language of Hittite, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Germanic, Sanskrit, Avestan, Slavic, Baltic, Armenian, Albanian and Tocharian, reconstructed by comparing its descendants since no PIE text survives.^{[1, 5]}

Asterisk (*)

The mark conventionally placed before a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form, such as *deywo-s ("god, deity"), to show it is not directly attested in any surviving text.^[6]

Pontic-Caspian steppe

The region north of the Black and Caspian Seas that, in the most widely accepted view, was the homeland of Proto-Indo-European speakers around the fifth or fourth millennium BCE.^[4]

Trifunctional hypothesis

Georges Dumézil's influential theory that Indo-European societies were ideologically organized into three classes—priests or sovereigns, warriors and producers—with myth describing this division as divinely ordained.^[7]