
Image via Business Insider
English, Urdu, Russian, Norwegian — they're just a few of the myriad tongues that belong to the massive Indo-European language family.
Scientists believe they all started in one place: Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern-day Turkey.
Based on the research of University of Auckland, New Zealand, evolutionary biologist Quentin Atkinson, tracing the vocabulary and geographical reach of 103 Indo-European languages, a Business Insider video shows the spread, development and evolution of the tongues of Europe.
Starting with ancient Anatolian, the video shows Indo-European dialects envelope Europe — all while the old tongues change or, in the case of Asia Minor, get replaced by a different language family altogether.
A few oddities are clear on the map as well -- you'll notice a blank space spreading in the Slavic region around 1000, representing the non-Indo-European Hungarian language, and Kurdish streaks as an Indo-European outpost in the Arabic-speaking world.
Watch the mesmerizing video below:
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