Indo-European : European Union’s National Language

These are the latest developments of the Dnghu Association:

1. We have opened formally the possibility to participate in the authoring of the second edition of the book A Grammar of Modern Indo-European. We’ve added new download links, and the whole Word file might be downloaded as DOCX (original) and DOC format, and the book cover is available in Photoshop PSD format, both files in the latest available version.

2. Because of the interest in the printed version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, we have arranged a bookstore with Amazon, to let visitors choose among those books we deem interesting for Proto-Indo-European and Indo-European studies. This way, we recommend the books and at the same time obtain a percentage of Amazon’s earnings.

We have also added a tiny Ad link on Dnghu’s main websites, following our 2008 policy of recovering some money spent in non-associate visitors with Google ads.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

These are our latest projects and developments at DNGHU:

- Some Bible texts have been translated, thanks to the interest of M. Bobeck and B. Barrois - we didn’t translate the Genesis and Psalms 90 and 104, as expected, but give it some time. Available texts include the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary, Credo (Nicene Creed), the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the beginning of the Gospel of John.

- We will keep working on the Indo-European online language lessons website. Any corrections or additions are indeed welcome.

- We have included some 30 new research papers to our Indo-European Private Online Library for members only.

- We are collecting new addresses of European Universitary and Public libraries, and expect to send a hundred donated books more in the next weeks.

- We are planning to participate in a project about Comparative Medical Terms and Concepts in Indo-European Tradition, especially of Indian, Greek and Latin texts, but obviously including the oldest texts available of every Indo-European linguistic branch. If any of you would like to take part on it, feel free to contact us.

- We have received an ad from the ExpoLingua Berlin, the 21st International Fair for Languages and Cultures - they really know who to target… If some of you (rich) readers would like to donate the necessary amount to participate, we would be very grateful to you . You can visit their website to read more about it.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

During the last month and a half, there have been some improvements:

1. We’ve begun a basic language learning project and favoured it over the rest of Indo-European development projects (news, encyclopaedia, texts, etc.). We want to help build a community giving them some basic knowledge, instead of just addressing those who already study (or have studied) Proto-Indo-European or Indo-European linguistics. We’ve just opened the online Modern Indo-European language lessons website at dnghu.org, still only in English, powered by Drupal.
2. We’ve dedicated some time to keep building our main website, translating it into some new languages, like Polish, Russian, Greek, Czech, Romanian, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Catalan, Slovak, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Danish or Slovene. If the other “main” languages are mainly poor machine translations, these new ones are in a still lesser category, and could be tagged more or less like bad automatic translated menus… In other words, they are there for people to be able to collaborate directly correcting mistakes and adding information from the English website, as they could already do with the “main” languages. Any correction or addition might be (as always) discussed at our Indo-European languages forum.
3. We opened the membership for the Dnghu Association back in February. We don’t want to advertise it too much, as our aim is not (yet) to develop the participative side of our society, but to offer to those interested the possibility to help our association with small donations, with the return of being officially members of the Association (apart from other benefits we’ll try to give them) and thus being able to take some ordinary decisions. The actual problem is that the society is legally based in Spain, and important decisions are taken in our town; therefore, legally speaking, to be a member right now will mean generally no participation in important or strategic decision-taking. To sum up: for those interested in being members and help us a little bit, there is a new option called membership, which gives some legal rights, quite limited for those living outside Spain. For those not interested in taking that step, participation and discussion in our public projects remains open for all.

In the following weeks we’ll try to:

• Further develop the online language lessons, including some audio files to give a better idea of the Modern Indo-European pronunciation.
• Publish some officially translated texts, like prayers and Bible passages, either here in this website or in the Wikis for Indo-European texts
• Send more printed copiesof the Indo-European grammar to European libraries; we have almost completed a new list of another 100 public and university libraries, we’ll see if and when we have enough time to prepare the packages.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

One of the latest changes made in our websites has been the move of our Indo-European Language Resources‘ weblog to an old subdomain, namely that of the Indo-European Dictionary-Translator, which is now been revised for its use in www.indo-european.info.

We expect to post all new resources, and the improvements made to the old ones, in that blog, so that we can use this one for our main Indo-European Language Revival news only.

That’s all for now. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - and happy (second) birthday to the Dnghu Association!

Your Indo-European Language Team.

Your Dnghu Team.

After the last update of Schleicher’s fable in Proto-Indo-European and its main dialects, we wanted to offer an alternative short text for comparison, and have thus added another page to the old one, including “The King and the god” in Proto-Indo-European and its dialects, apart from applying some minor corrections to the Schleicher’s fable.

Following the Wikipedia article, «The king and the god (rēḱs deiwos-kʷe, Latin rex deusque) is the title of a short dialogue composed in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. It is loosely based on the “king Harishcandra” episode of Aitareya Brahmana (7.14 = 33.2). S. K. Sen asked a number of Indo-Europeanists (Y. E. Arbeitman, E. P. Hamp, M. Mayerhofer, J. Puhvel, W. Winter) to reconstruct the PIE “parent” of the text.»

This short tale is different from its Sanskrit original:

athainam uvāca:
Varuṇaṃ rājānam upadhāva:
putro me jāyatāṃ, tena tvā yajā iti
tatheti. sa Varuṇaṃ rājānam upasasāra:
putro me jāyatāṃ, tena tvā yajā iti. tatheti.
tasya ha putro jajñe Rohito nāma.

English Translation:

Then he said to him:
Have recourse to Varuna, the king, (saying):
“Let a son be born to me; with him let me sacrifice to thee”
“Be it so” (he replied). He went up to Varuna, the king (saying)
“Let a son be born to me; with him let me sacrifice to thee.” “Be it so” (he replied)
To him a son was born, Rohita by name.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

There has been a growing interest in our Schleicher’s Fable, especially in the different known Indo-European proto-languages, as they appear in our Indo-European Grammar.

I personally just wanted to show the different (mostly phonetical) evolutions in Indo-European, in the differentiation among early dialects, and I used the Schleicher’s fable in Proto-Indo-European just to show the possible early outputs.

This weekend we received 3 more mails correcting it, and these made up ten already, which is a lot taking on account the limited interest shown in other, more controversial parts of the grammar.

It is obviously not the best part to correct and contribute to, for Modern Indo-European to be revived, but it’s still an interesting starting point, as people seem to feel more comfortable with the immediate ancestor of their own languages than with Proto-Indo-European itself.

New versions have been made with the indications of an Indo-European expert, and the latest corrections and additions have been uploaded to the Schleicher’s Fable: The Sheep and the Horses (PDF).

It is now opened as a separate document, with its own versions, and with its link from the homepage. We hope to keep correcting it, to add versions in Proto-Albanian, Proto-Daco-Thracian, Messapian, Ligurian, and even Indo-Uralic, Eurasiatic, etc.

Thank you for your comments and corrections, sorry for not being able to answer you personally.

Carlos (the Indo-European Language Team)

We have received the first 200 books, and we will start sending them to different libraries tomorrow. The editor Imcrea Editorial has worked a press release to be distributed among journalists, which we reproduce here:

Report (revised automatic translation):

In order to understand each other, the 27 EU member states have to trust the biggest translation service of the world: more than 4,000 people work in the corridors of Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. Around them circulate the Spanish-Pole interpreter, the Spanish-Danish, Spanish-Finnish, Finnish-Estonian, Finnish-Bulgarian, Bulgarian-Maltese… And so on until completing the 506 possible translation pairs that are necessary to have 23 official languages translated into each other. Not even the UN, with six working languages, wins in multilingualism.

All this distilled communication system bears an equally scandalous cost. The most recent data, of 2005, speak of 1,123 million euros invested in translations and interpreters throughout that year, which makes up 1% of the total budget of the EU, 2.28 euros per capita. Speaking in English, one of each 100 euros that leave the European box is used so that the 27 can understand each other. Whenever a language is added, the EU must add to the set of translations 25 million euros more.

Except for Finland, Hungary and Estonia [about 17 million inhabitants], the rest of Europeans, 97% of the population, have been speaking some language derived from Indo-European, a reconstructed language spoken 4,000 years ago in Europe and Asia. So why not recover this mother language, culturally neutral and common to all?

If some measures are not carried out, English, that has become the de facto lingua franca of the EU, will continue to prevail through the use of the argument of its world-wide weight. The Swiss François Grin, specialist in Linguistic Economy, published in 2005 a report which emphasized that Great Britain, thanks to the predominance of its language, gained between 17,000 and 18,000 millions euros annually because of the need of the other member states to learn English.

The Dnghu (’Language’) Association is an international, non-profit organization located in Europe, whose main mission is to promote the Indo-European language and culture. Its primary concerns today are developing the Modern Indo-European Grammatical System, to bring the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language to its full potential, and teaching it as a second language for all European Union citizens. Our long-term objectives are the adoption of Modern Indo-European by the European Union as its main official language, as well as the use of Indo-European as the main international auxiliary language, to overcome present-day communication barriers, derived from the cultural implications that arise from the use of English as lingua franca.

The Dnghu Association is financed by a private Spanish education company, Biblos, and its work is supported by Extremadura University professors. The regional Government of Extremadura and other public economic agents have also supported the Dnghu projects’ present and future implementation.

After creation of group, the presentation of the project and the legal incorporation of the Association, the last hit in our task to revive Proto-Indo-European is the publication of “A Grammar of Modern Indo-European” (at the moment only available in English), which tries to agglutinate in a single volume all the knowledge acquired in the last two centuries of Indo-European studies, and to provide at the same time an appropriate writing system and updated vocabulary to the modern needs of the language speakers. In order to enable a quick distribution of the book - and thus also the learning of the language - the Association has published it under free licenses, so that anyone can copy, publish and redistribute it freely; in addition, almost all the units printed will be dedicated to free donations to different European libraries.

Nota de Prensa (original Spanish version):

Para hacerse entender, los 27 países constructores de la Unión Europea han tenido que poner en pie el servicio de traducciones más grande del mundo: más de 4.000 personas trabajan en los pasillos de Bruselas, Estrasburgo y Luxemburgo. Por ellos circulan el intérprete de español-polaco, de español-danés, de español-finés, de finés-estonio, de finés-búlgaro, de búlgaro-maltés… Así hasta completar las 506 parejas de traducción posibles que surgen por tener 23 lenguas oficiales. Ni la ONU, con seis idiomas de trabajo, le gana en poliglotismo.

Todo este alambicado sistema de comunicación conlleva una factura igualmente escandalosa. Los datos más recientes, de 2005, hablan de 1.123 millones de euros invertidos en traducciones e intérpretes a lo largo de ese año, lo que supone un 1% del presupuesto total de la UE, 2,28 euros por habitante. Hablando en castellano, uno de cada 100 euros que sale de la caja europea es destinado a que los 27 puedan descifrarse entre sí. Cada vez que se incorpora una lengua, la UE tiene que sumar a la partida de traducciones 25 millones de euros más.

Salvo Finlandia, Hungría y Estonia [unos 17 millones de habitantes], el resto de los europeos, el 97% de la población, habla algún idioma derivado del indoeuropeo, un idioma hablado hasta hace 4.000 años en Europa y Asia, ya reconstruído en su mayor parte ¿Por qué no recuperar esta lengua madre, culturalmente neutra y común a todos?

Si no se lleva a cabo alguna medida, el inglés, que se ha convertido de facto en la lengua franca de la UE, seguirá utilizando el argumento de su peso mundial para imponerse. El suizo François Grin, especialista en Economía Lingüística, publicó en 2005 un informe donde subrayaba que Gran Bretaña, gracias al predominio de su lengua, ingresaba entre 17.000 y 18.000 millones de euros anuales provenientes entre otros apartados de la necesidad del resto de países miembros de la UE de enseñar el inglés.

Dnghu (”lengua” en indoeuropeo) es una organización internacional sin ánimo de lucro situada en Extremadura que nació con la idea de promover la lengua y cultura indoeuropeas. Su principal objetivo hoy es el desarrollo de las reglas gramaticales básicas del indoeuropeo para que adquiera todo su esplendor como lengua moderna, y la enseñanza del indoeuropeo como segunda lengua en la Unión Europea. Su objetivo a largo plazo consiste en la adopción del indoeuropeo por la Unión como su principal lengua oficial y nacional.

La Asociación Dnghu está financiada por una institución educativa española, la Academia Biblos, y su trabajo es apoyado por profesores de la Universidad de Extremadura. La Junta de Extremadura y otras instituciones ya dieron su apoyo concediendo un premio al proyecto en el I concurso “Empresas de la Sociedad de la Imaginación”, organizado conjuntamente por la Universidad de Extremadura y el Gabinete de Iniciativa Joven, con la participación de diversas instituciones públicas en su tribunal.

Tras la creación del grupo, la presentación del proyecto y la fundación legal de la Asociación, el último hito en el camino para revivir el indoeuropeo lo constituye la publicación de la “Gramática del Indoeuropeo Moderno” (por el momento sólo disponible en inglés, “A Grammar of Modern Indo-European”), que pretende aglutinar en un solo volúmen todo el conocimiento adquirido en los últimos dos siglos de estudios de los grandes indoeuropeístas, y proveer al mismo tiempo a la lengua de un sistema de escritura apropiado y de un vocabulario actualizado a las necesidades modernas. Para agilizar la distribución del libro – y así también el aprendizaje de la lengua – la Asociación lo ha publicado bajo licencias libres, con lo que cualquiera puede copiarlo, editarlo y redistribuirlo líbremente; además, casi todos los ejemplares que se impriman se dedicarán a donaciones gratuitas a distintas bibliotecas europeas.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

After the last weeks of holydays, some Dnghu members are back to work. We are all, however, engaged in different activities in the University - Doctorate, Exams, Academy (private) lessons for the exams, and language courses.

Recent matters to be solved at DNGHU before the beginning of this academic course:

- The decision on the public subsidies for the project of teaching European languages are due for September after informal reports, even though no date has been fixed. Even if we don’t receive the public approval, we have made some agreements with private schools to teach this experimental subject in the 2007-2008 course, instead of Latin or ‘Classical Studies’.
- We haven’t accomplished some of our ToDos for 2006-2007, like the PodCast in Indo-European, the news’ website, the renewal of Dnghu’s site (and its correct translation into Modern Indo-European), and many other little projects. We hope to get all this done before Christmas.
- Some domain names haven’t been renewed by our provider while we were on holydays, in the last 20 days; we hope this will be solved in the next days without further problems. Sorry for the inconveniences to all of you Wiki editors.
- The printed copies of our Indo-European Grammar were supposed to be available on 20th August; there was a problem in the output (it was not a “Distiller” document, as the printer wanted, but “only Acrobat”…), so we might have to wait a little more time till Editor and Printer agree on the final price. In any possible case, we hope to have most of the 200 copies sent to different European libraries by the end of October.
- Apparently, some spammers are using our domain wlqo.com and others to send thousands of emails; many anti-spam software out there (stupidly) answer automatically to the spammer email’s address, and we’ve got hundreds of spam warnings a day, so we have to delete thousand of mails. So the spammed servers are ironically spamming us… We will try to read any possible mail, but please share any information in the forum instead, just in case we mistakenly delete(d) your email.
- We want to have a site for links on linguistics, where every possible free online resource is listed or downloadable, so that every visitor can learn the (Proto-)Indo-European reconstruction - and Proto-Language/Nostratic, Indo-Uralic as well as Indo-European early dialects and proto-languages. If you know good websites, post them in the Forum, so that our work is more easily done.
- We will probably open a period for easy membership to our association, so that every interested individual or organization is able to participate in future decisions and elections.

That’s (almost) all for now.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

The last version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 1st Printed Edition, has been released after some corrections in its content and design (now version 3.20):

- Some mistakes in design have been corrected.

- The frontpage slightly modified, using vector images and .tif background image.

- Minor syntax and translation changes, as well as other corrections, have been applied to the content. Some information has been added.

- Machine translations of the whole text have been added, either as already translated text (to facilitate the quick reference in the most used languages) or as links to Altavista/Google/Tranexp web translation engines.

Thank you for your comments and corrections. The printed copies will be available in 15-30 days, after the editor and the printer have agreed on the final changes. The first donations of printed copies to European libraries will probably begin in september.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

The Gramática del indoeuropeo moderno is the translation into Spanish of the Preface and Introduction sections of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, the main work of the Indo-European Revival Association.

Translations of those introductory sections into French and German are also being prepared. The rest of the book is deemed too specialized (and sometimes subject to future change) to spend our time and effort translating it - the book is, however, licensed under GFDL - CC-by-sa, so that anyone can translate it into any possible language, and then redistribute/publish it elsewhere.

There are also some Wiki Websites prepared to host the translations of the book, apart from other relevant information about the Proto-Indo-European language and its revival as a modern language, namely Indo-European (in English), Indo-Europeen (en Français), Indogermanisch (auf Deutsch), indoeuropeo (in italiano), etc. (visit europaio.org and sindhueuropaiom.org for more languages)

Your Indo-European Language Team.