Section 7

Question 1

a hypothetical prehistoric population of Eurasia

Answer 1

Indo-European(s)

Question 2

a British judge who lived in India and in 1786 was the first person to suggest the possibility of Indo-European civilization

Answer 2

William Jones

Question 3

Jones’ hypothesis opened a new door to the past and sparked the modern science of

Answer 3

Historical Linguistics

Question 4

Parallels in vocabulary and grammar quickly emerged among foreign languages, particularly in what were then the oldest preserved tongues: Latin, Greek and

Answer 4

Sanskrit

Question 5

an ancient body of writings from India

Answer 5

The Vedas

Question 6

from the same linguistic origin as

Answer 6

Cognate

Question 7

the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family.

Answer 7

Proto-Indo-European

Question 8

pushed aside at least two previous groups of Indo-European invaders and precipitated so much chaos that a centuries-long dark age ensued

Answer 8

Dorian Invasion

Question 9

an offshoot of the Proto-Indo-European language, a linguistic variant

Answer 9

Common Germanic

Question 10

including Welsh, Scots Gaelic

Answer 10

Celtic

Question 11

including German, English, Dutch, Yiddish

Answer 11

Germanic

Question 12

including Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

Answer 12

Scandinavian

Question 13

studied early German literature, seeking rare words unchanged over time, archaic vocabulary which might elucidate the history of the German language.

Answer 13

Jacob Grimm

Question 14

a fascinating body of folklore which he and his brother Wilhelm published

Answer 14

Grimms’ Fairy Tales

Question 15

a pattern in the evolution of Common Germanic as it was developing out of Proto-Indo-European, a change that he deduced had to have taken place long ago

Answer 15

Great Consonant Shift

Question 16

p, t, k

Answer 16

Unvoiced

Question 17

ph, th, kh

Answer 17

Aspirate

Question 18

even if a Germanic word and one from a different branch of Indo-European didn’t look alike on the surface, in many cases they could be shown to be cognate with each other if one assumed that certain consonants had followed a predictable course of change

Answer 18

Grimm’s Law

Question 19

by looking at how different its daughter languages are from one another, it may be possible to get a sense of the extent of time it took to create that number of variations in grammar and vocabulary evidenced in Indo-European languages.

Answer 19

Glossochronology

Question 20

Where they lived is no less difficult to assess. Called the

Answer 20

Homeland Problem

Question 21

Their chief god was probably an entity whom they called

Answer 21

“Sky-Father”

Question 22

the Romans whose principal deity was known as

Answer 22

Jupiter

Question 23

the Greeks whose god

Answer 23

Zeus

Question 24

The Indo-Europeans must also have favored _________ (“division into threes

Answer 24

Tripartition