Discover how English, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek all descend from one ancient ancestor — and what that tells us about the history of humanity.
Both options cover the same course content — the difference is how and when you learn.
Self Study
Enrol anytime, start immediately. Lifetime access to all course materials. Book an optional Q&A session with Nigel any time you want something clarified.
$40 / one-off
Register & EnrolPersonal Tuition
Work through this course privately with Nigel via Microsoft Teams. Flexible scheduling, completely bespoke to your pace and goals.
$140 / per student
Book a session Book a bundleWhat you'll learn
Understand how Proto-Indo-European spread from the Eurasian steppe across Europe and into India and Iran
Use core vocabulary to reconstruct Indo-European society and culture
Understand how the grammar of ancient and modern languages came about through sound laws and language change
Appreciate the place of English in the Indo-European language family
Read short passages from Hittite, Sanskrit, Latin and Gothic with guidance
Recognise connections between languages as far apart as English, Persian and Sanskrit
Course outline
The rise of the Proto-Indo-Europeans in prehistory
From Proto-Indo-Uralic to Proto-Indo-European
Hittite — translation of a passage from the oldest attested Indo-European language
Indo-European pronouns
Indo-European vocabulary: numerals 1–10
Separation of the branches of Indo-European
Sanskrit — translation of a passage
The Indo-European noun and the origins of grammatical gender
Indo-European reconstructed — key vocabulary and forms
Indo-European vocabulary: kinship terms
The Italo-Celtic branch
Latin — translation of a passage
The Indo-European verb
Indo-European vocabulary: parts of the body
The Germanic branch
The Indo-European origins of adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and articles
Development of Indo-European into Germanic and of Germanic into Gothic and Old English
Gothic — translation of a passage
Indo-European vocabulary: religion and mythology
From Proto-Nostratic and Proto-Afroasiatic to Hebrew, and connections to Proto-Indo-European
Who this course is for
You're curious about where languages come from — and why English, Greek and Sanskrit share so many words
You've watched Nigel's YouTube videos on language origins and want to go deeper
You study or have studied Latin, Greek or Sanskrit and want to understand the bigger picture
You're interested in history, archaeology or human migration and want to understand what language tells us
What students say
"I very much enjoyed Nigel's course on Indo-European languages. Nigel has an amazing knowledge of languages, and it was an eye-opener to me when he demonstrated how apparently dissimilar languages were related if you looked a little bit closer, under the skin, as it were. Reading some of the ancient literature was wonderful too."
Your teacher
Nigel spent seven years attending degree-level classes across every branch of the Indo-European language family. He now teaches from Auckland to students worldwide via Microsoft Teams.
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