46-50
Linguists subscribe to the belief that the languages of about one-third of the human race all developed from one
Indo-European language. But who were the speakers of this ancient language? Linguistic detective work offers
some clues: you can deduce a people’s history from the words they use. Study of some fifty ancient vocabularies
has led to a reconstruction of the lifestyle of the first Indo-Europeans, a vanished people. From the words they used,it seems likely that they lived a half-settled, half-nomadic existence. They worshipped gods who are clear ancestors of Indian, Mediterranean, and Celtic deities. However, exactly who the original Indo-Europeans were and when they lived remain a hotly debated mystery. According to an early theory, they lived in Mesopotamia, but this idea was exploded by nineteenth-century archaeology. Today, some argue for the Krugan culture of the Russian steppes, others for the farming culture of the Danube valley. The most widely accepted theory locates the Indo-Europeans in a cold, northern climate where common words for snow and wolf were important. None of these prehistoric languages had a word for the sea. From this, and from our knowledge of nature, it is clear that the Indo-Europeans must have lived somewhere in northern central Europe. 【題組】46.
What is this passage mainly about?
(A) The intellectual climate of the Indo-Europeans (B) A study of prehistoric lifestyles
(C) A search for ancient Indo-Europeans (D) Prehistoric ways of living
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