Talking Turkey

Evolutionary biologists at Auckland University have made ivory tower headlines by providing compelling evidence of the origins of the Indo-European language family. Associate Professor Russell Gray and PhD student Quentin Atkinson applied a complex computer program modelled on those used in genetics to the question which has baffled linguists for nearly two centuries: whether the Indo-European language was spread by Kurgan horseman invading Europe and the Near East from the Russian steppes 6,000 years ago, or via agricultural expansion from Anatolia (modern Turkey) 3,000 years earlier. The findings of Gray and Atkinson aver that the language family diverted from its predecessors well before the Kurgan horsemen, which places its origins in Anatolia. The ground-breaking theory – published in leading British science journal Nature – made headlines around the world and has been championed in the US by Stanford University’s renowned geneticist, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza.