The pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe, Asia Minor, Ancient Iran, and Southern Asia before the arrival of speakers of Indo-European languages. The oldest Indo-European language texts are Hittite and date from the 19th century BC in Kültepe (modern eastern Turkey), and while estimates vary widely, the spoken Indo-European languages are believed to have developed at the latest by the 3rd millennium BC (see Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses). Thus, the pre-Indo-European languages must have developed earlier than or, in some cases, alongside the Indo-European languages that ultimately displaced and replaced almost all of them. A handful of the pre-Indo-European languages are still extant: in Europe, Basque retains a localised strength, with fewer than a million native speakers, whereas the Dravidian languages remain very widespread in the Indian subcontinent, with over 250 million native speakers (the four major languages being Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam) and the Brahui that stretches into modern Iran. In the Caucasus, Northwest and Northeast Caucasian languages and Kartvelian languages are still intact, with the first having the least language security of the three pre-Indo-European Caucasian language groups. Some pre-Indo-European languages are attested only as linguistic substrates in Indo-European languages or in toponyms. In much of Western Asia (including Iran and Anatolia), the pre-Indo-European, Caucasian, Semitic languages, Dravidian and language isolates have survived to the present day, although Elamite has entirely disappeared.
Terminology Before World War II, all the unclassified languages of Europe and the Near East were commonly referred to as Asianic languages, and the term encompassed several languages that were later found to be Indo-European (such as Lydian), and others (such as Hurro-Urartian, Hattic, Elamite, Kassite, Colchian and Sumerian) which were classified as distinct pre-Indo-European language families or language isolates. In 1953, the linguist Johannes Hubschmid identified at least five pre-Indo-European language families in Western Europe: Eurafrican, which covered North Africa, Italy, Spain and France; Hispano-Caucasian, which replaced Eurafrican and stretched from Northern Spain to the Caucasus Mountains; Iberian, which was spoken by most of Spain prior to the Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula; Libyan, which was spoken mostly in North Africa but encroached into Sardinia; and Etruscan, which was spoken in Northern Italy. The term pre-Indo-European is not universally accepted, as some linguists maintain the idea of the relatively late arrival of the speakers of the unclassified languages to Europe, possibly even after the Indo-European languages, and so prefer to speak about non-Indo-European languages. The newer term Paleo-European languages is proposed as a preferable description, but is not applicable to the languages that predated or coexisted with Indo-European outside Europe.
Surviving languages These pre-Indo-European languages have survived to modern times:
in the Indian subcontinent, the Dravidian languages, Munda languages (a branch of the Austroasiatic languages), Tibeto-Burman languages, Nihali, Kusunda, Vedda and Burushaski. in the Caucasus, the Kartvelian, Northeast Caucasian, Northwest Caucasian which together include Georgian, Abkhaz, Circassian, Chechen, Ingush, Dagestani, etc. in the Iberian Peninsula and France, Basque. in Northern Eurasia, the Paleosiberian languages.
Languages that contributed substrates to Indo-European languages Examples of suggested or known substrate influences on specific Indo-European languages include the following:
Pre-Anatolian: Hattic language Colchian Akkadian (also known as Assyrian and Babylonian) Pre-Armenian: Hurro-Urartian languages Aramaic (Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Syriac) Substrate in Vedic Sanskrit, proposed sources for which include: Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (possible source of Sanskrit vocabulary, language not attested) Harappan language (not attested in readable script; see Indus script) Lullubi language Vedda language Burushaski language Dravidian languages Munda languages Nihali language Tibeto-Burman languages Substrates to early undifferentiated or partly-differentiated Indo-European in Western Europe: Old European hydronymy (possibly Indo-European, as originally thought by Krahe) Vasconic substrate hypothesis Tyrsenian languages Pre-Greek substrate languages, which may have included: Minoan language (see also Linear A, Cretan hieroglyphs) Eteocretan language (may have been a descendant of Minoan) Eteocypriot language (see also Cypro-Minoan script) Pre-Germanic: Germanic substrate hypothesis Pre-Celtic languages: Insular Celtic: Goidelic substrate hypothesis For the British Isles, see Celtic settlement of Great Britain and Ireland Continental Celtic: Paleohispanic languages Vasconic languages Proto-Basque Aquitanian language (often thought to be the direct ancestor of Basque) Iberian language Tartessian language (classification as Celtic has been proposed) Pre-Italic languages: Tyrsenian languages Etruscan language Raetic language (probably related to Etruscan) Camunic language (probably Raetic) Elymian language (perhaps Indo-European) North Picene language Paleo-Sardinian language (also called Paleosardinian, Protosardic, Nuraghic language) Sicanian language Other propositions are generally rejected by modern linguists:
Atlantic (Semitic) languages
Attested languages Languages attested in inscriptions include the following:
Tartessian Iberian Aquitanian Etruscan Rhaetian Camunic Lemnian North Picene Sicanian Minoan Eteocretan Eteocypriot Hattic Urartian Elamite Kaskian Gutian
Unattested but hypothesised languages These languages are hypothesised to be related to pre-Indo-European languages:
Kaskian language (possibly related to Hattic?) Paleo-Sardinian Paleo-Corsican
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