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By comparing contemporary Indo-European languages (including
English, Spanish, French and German), linguists have
reconstructed what they call proto-Indo- European, a precursor to
all Indo-European languages, Renfrew said. That takes us back to
5,000 years ago.
But to push back the date further requires help from other
fields. For example, Renfrew said, we know that languages spread
when populations shift.
That means archaeology should say something about language. And
DNA studies tell us a great deal about how populations are
related, going back some 30,000 years.
The problem is, "it is difficult to correlate data from different
fields," Renfrew said. "There is always the possibility of
dubious interpretations," which gets more and more likely the
further back in time you go. That's why most linguists accept
that we can see back at least 5,000 years, but few think we can
detect the echoes of a hypothetical first language some 80,000
years ago.
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