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Proto

How One Ancient Language Went Global

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Proto

By: Laura Spinney
Narrated by: Emma Spurgin Hussey
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*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.

©2025 Laura Spinney (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers Ancient Archaeology Biological Sciences Civilisation Evolution & Genetics Genetics Linguistics Science Social Sciences World Africa Ancient History Middle East
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Critic Reviews

'The fascinating story of the ancient words that survive in the mouths of billions of speakers today.'
Henry Oliver, The Guardian
'Proto will take the reader on an unlikely historical odyssey … most importantly, it shows that we are more connected than we might have been led to believe.'
New Statesman
'A magisterial feat … It is clever, careful, expansive, insightful and a host of other fine Indo-European adjectives.'
New Scientist
'Bringing together genetic, archaeological and linguistic research, Spinney tells the fascinating story of the common ancestor of many languages spoken around the world today.'
Financial Times
'An enormously refreshing and readable history of worlds that were physically far apart but, in a sense, spoke with a single voice.'
David Abulafia, Literary Review
'A compelling portrait of a people thought lost to time … a remarkable account of humanity’s quest to rediscover its ancient origins.'
Wall Street Journal
'Beguiling and revelatory… Spinney is a stylish and erudite writer.'
Laura Miller, Slate
'Intriguing, lively … something for everyone.'
Nature
'The fascinating tale of how a tiny, long-lost ancestral language, Proto-Indo-European, gave birth to a great family of languages … death and life are in the power of the tongue'
Michael Hurley, BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day
'A lively and fascinating account. I 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
‘Superb. With style and panache, Laura Spinney tells a truly extraordinary detective story.’
Matt Ridley, author of The Evolution of Everything
‘An extraordinary journey through human history with words as a compass. It is a sweeping story beautifully told. Profound and illuminating.’
Moudhy Al-Rashid, author of Between Two Rivers
All stars
Most relevant
The popular conception of history starts with the written word, Egyptians and Greeks. It’s interesting to be able to go back further via language and archaeology and see something like Indigenous Europe (although as the story shows, everything is complex and there are no simple native groups). I would have liked a little more language and a little less archaeology myself, and the reader’s pronunciation of sounds uncommon in English (retroflex, etc) felt very strained, but otherwise a compelling listen.

Trip back to the real past

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I'm not sure what I was expecting, and was surprised to find that I was reading a story of archeological discoveries and the thinking that follows. Much of the research quoted related to very recent work, and discoveries during this century. The development of DNA science has obviously helped enormously. I'm not sure I picked up on a conclusion - if it was there, I may have missed it, or perhaps I didn't agree with it. What the scientists may miss is the unspoken language that resides in the unmanifest. The study of Sanskrit points to it, especially when linked with the study of the Veda. And the emergence of words from conscious beings such as Shakespeare and Plato. The created words that seem so appropriate to the meaning they convey. This is a really impressive work in relation to the ground it covered. But I'm still left with the big question - what is the source of all languages?

Impressive

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