The story of how today's largest language family (including English) descends from one ancient dialect - and what it reveals about the course of humanity.Daughter. Duhitár. Dustr. Dukte. Listen to these English, Sanskrit, Albanian, and Lithuanian words, all meaning the same thing, and you hear the echoes of one of history's most unlikely journeys. All four languages - along with hundreds of others, from French and Gaelic, to Persian and Polish - can trace their origins to a single language that predated writing and can only be glimpsed through tentative reconstructions called Proto-Indo-European. Its last speaker died thousands of years ago, yet it survives today in the native tongues of over half Earth's population.Who spoke this language, and how did its offshoots spread from Valencia to Vladivostok? Acclaimed science journalist Laura Spinney whisks readers on a globe-spanning voyage into these mysteries. Through the latest research in archaeology, linguistics, and paleogenetics, Proto offers an unprecedented glimpse into the world in which this Ur-language was born. It was a lingua franca for two distinct cultures blending along a border zone, very near where today's battle lines between Ukraine and Russia are drawn. In fact, this history is marked by the tension between mutualism and expansive aggression, bearing on the most pressing questions of our own unsettled age. Perfect for readers of The Dawn of Humanity and Humankind, Proto is an ambitious, enlightening book revealing how the past lives within us - even in our words, and the stories we tell with them.