Indo-European Artifacts

This course deals with a series of Indo-European words shared by several language families, the cultural and civilizational content of which helps reveal the material and intangible history of Indo-European peoples. The reconstructed vocabulary referring to the physical aspects of Proto-Indo-European makes it possible to reconstruct the material and immaterial culture of the original Indo-Europeans. Students familiarize themselves with the Indo-European words and their Proto-Indo-European reconstructions from the following semantic fields: the human body: anatomy, functions and diseases; wedding and kinship relations; social and political relationships; law; warfare; religion, mythology; nature; house, dwelling; material culture; fabric, clothes; activities; plants and arable farming; animals; food, drinks; property, trading; mathematics: quantity, number, counting to one thousand; emotions and sensory organs, time, speech; colors; movement and spatial relations.

Part of the classes is intended for preparing a project involving all the students. The projects deal with various aspects of comparative linguistics, but focus especially on those Indo-European languages that are given less attention in other courses (e.g., Tocharian, Armenian, or Celtic languages) and contribute to understanding the world of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
Special attention is dedicated to students’ computer literacy.