An examination of three competing hypotheses concerning the origin of the Indo-European language family.

摘要

The thesis will examine three hypotheses which seek to explain the origin of the Indo-European language family. Each will be treated according to the following criteria: the specific data selected, how the data sets used in the hypotheses correlate to one another, the methodology used by the author(s), and how well the final conclusion correlates to the data. The thesis will also discuss how the Bantu and Romance languages spread. The mechanisms of dispersal of these two languages will be examined and the supporting data will be compared to the mechanisms of dispersal and the supportive data of the three Indo-European hypotheses.