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Well, English and most indian languages share a common ancestor, but indic languages have drifted just as far as any other from proto Indo-European that you can
by doubleunplussed 4y ago
Well, English and most indian languages share a common ancestor, but indic languages have drifted just as far as any other from proto Indo-European that you can't really say one branch inherited anything from the other . Indic languages are our cousins, not our grandparents.
- yesbabyyes 4y agoPerhaps not just as far though? I don't know how true it is, but I've heard that Lithuanian is considered the living language that is closest to proto-Indo-European. English is interesting in that it has been mixed up with so many different branches of the tree, Saxon, Scandinavian, Latin, French, etc during different periods. Sometimes it has synonyms coming from eg Norse and French, where the PIE root is the same but the words are quite different, and carrying different connotations.