Indo-European people
For the language group see Indo-European languages; for other uses see Indo-European (disambiguation)Indo-Europeans are speakers of
Indo-European languages. The term may apply to
* The
Proto-Indo-Europeans (speakers of the hypothetical
Proto-Indo-European language)
*
Bronze Age (3rd to 2nd millennia BC) speakers of Indo-European languages that had not yet split into the attested
sub-families, viz. early
Centum and Satem dialects (speakers of languages predating
Proto-Indo-Iranian,
Proto-Greek,
Proto-Celtic,
Proto-Italic,
Proto-Germanic,
Proto-Balto-Slavic etc.)
The term "Indo-Europeans" does
not usually refer to speakers of various Indo-European languages in historical times: linguists usually refer to such people specifically as
Anatolians,
Tocharians,
Indo-Aryans,
Iranians,
Greeks,
Celts,
Italic peoples,
Germanic peoples,
Veneti,
Baltic peoples,
Slavic peoples,
Armenians,
Albanians (or subdivisions of these terms).
Note that in any event the classification "Indo-European" addresses matters of
language, which do not necessarily correlate with divisions of
ethnicity or even of specific
culture.
