The Prehistory of Plautdietsch

• The “discovery” and reconstruction of Indo-European was hailed as one of the major intellectual achievements of the 19th century

• • By comparing related words in those languages which developed out of “proto-Indo-European”, it was possible to reconstruct features of the mother language, even beyond what the archaeological record could provide
  • This revealed that languages as diverse as English and Russian, Danish and Gaelic, Plautdietsch and Hindi were all distant relatives - all members of a single language family