> The reason Europe speaks Indo-European languages isn't that the ancient inhabitants thought that Proto-Indo-European was neat and adopted it --- it's that the

> The reason Europe speaks Indo-European languages isn't that the ancient inhabitants thought that Proto-Indo-European was neat and adopted it --- it's that the PIE-speaking Yamnaya swept in from the caucuses and slaughtered mostly everyone (especially men) except the Basques. It's not pretty, but that's the way it was. This is ridiculous statement. Yes, there must have been conquests and slaughters in history and many other man made disasters. Some of the conquerors had been multiplying faster because they had been taking better lands from conquered or because they had better agricultural techniques. But the idea that each coming wave had been perpetrating Holocaust on the entire territory of Europe is simply technically impossible. Much more likely is that after some violent conquest there were periods of assimilation, mixing of cultures and single language becoming a common tongue.