Proto Audiobook By Laura Spinney cover art

Proto

Pre-order with offer Pre-order for $0.00
Offer ends January 21, 2025 at 11:59PM ET.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Proto

By: Laura Spinney
Pre-order with offer Pre-order for $0.00

$14.95/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends January 21, 2025 11:59PM ET. Cancel anytime.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Pre-order for $19.62

Pre-order for $19.62

Confirm pre-order
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

'Lively and fascinating … I loved it' David Bellos, author of Is That a Fish in your Ear?

'Erudite and entertaining' Professor Peter Trudgill

'A real detective story … a tour de force' David Crystal, author of A Date with Language

One ancient language transformed our world. This is its story.

As the planet emerged from the last ice age, a language was born between Europe and Asia. This ancient tongue, which we call Proto-Indo-European, soon exploded out of its cradle, changing and fragmenting as it went, until its offspring were spoken from Scotland to China. Today those descendants constitute the world’s largest language family, the thread that connects disparate cultures: Dante’s Inferno to the Rig Veda, The Lord of the Rings to the love poetry of Rumi. Indo-European languages are spoken by nearly half of humanity. How did this happen?

Laura Spinney set out to answer that question, retracing the Indo-European odyssey across continents and millennia. With her we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the silk roads and the Hindu Kush. We follow in the footsteps of nomads and monks, Amazon warriors and lion kings – the ancient peoples who spread these languages far and wide. In the present, Spinney meets the scientists on a thrilling mission to retrieve those lost languages: the linguists, archaeologists and geneticists who have reconstructed this ancient diaspora. What they have learned has vital implications for our modern world, as people and their languages are on the move again. Proto is a revelatory portrait of world history in its own words.

©2025 Laura Spinney (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers
Ancient Archaeology Civilization Genetics Social Sciences
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

'Proto is a real detective story told with a compelling combination of academic rigour, human interest, vivid description, and personal biography. A tour de force'

David Crystal, author of A Date with Language

‘Six millennia ago, Proto-Indo-European was just one dialect among the many spoken by the nomadic peoples who roamed Eurasia. Laura Spinney’s erudite and highly entertaining text is full of refreshing new insights as she tells the fascinating and romantic story of this dialect that spread across the world’

Professor Peter Trudgill FBA

What listeners say about Proto

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.