Spread of Indo-European languages

As far back as the 1st millenium B.C.; indo-european languages had been spoken by the vast majority of peoples in Europe, Anatolia, Central Asia, Iran, and India.

Genetic and linuistics do not mix since the incursion of even a small group of "conquerors" can have a great impact on language but lead to little change in the DNA!

I'm not sure conquest had that much effect on language.

Going back to the original question; Indo European languages certainly did not spread throughout Europe and Asia via conquest. We have never heard of any prehistoric "Indo-European Empire" have we?

Originally posted by pinguin Iberia certainly was converted into Indoeuropean. Originally it was Iberian-Basque-Phoenician.

"Converted" to certain extent; because the Celts had a major presence in Iberia prior to the Romans. Most of the northern and western coastlines were inhabitted by Celtic tribes. The central meseta was populated by Celti-Iberians; who we still don't know whether they were Iberian-speaking peoples who had adopted Celtic attributes, or the other way around; but in Roman eyes they were defenitely clearly distinguishable from both Celts and Iberians.

Regarding the Celtic expansion, the question is to whether they were indigenous peoples who had adopted en masse the Celtic language and culture, or that Celtic tribes actually migrated from Gaul and absorbed the local populace into their society.

By all means, genetic evidence points out that the Celts and Iberia are largely of native descent rather than migrants from Central Europe.

Originally posted by calvo Going back to the original question; Indo European languages certainly did not spread throughout Europe and Asia via conquest. We have never heard of any prehistoric "Indo-European Empire" have we?

Originally posted by calvo Prior to the Roman expansion, Indo-European languages already dominated large parts of Europe and Asia.

Originally posted by pinguin And what about Greece?

Greece had for sure speakers of somekind of Anatolian (Luwian, Carrian, Hittito -related). This is evident from the placenames (mainly) and some dictionary. Other languages could have been spoken as well. It's unclear what the Minoans spoke for example. Some suggest it was a very early form of Indoeuropean close to the Anatolian languages, other say it was a language that later became the Ionic Greek, other say it was Semitic (Phoenician or Egyptian) and as we've seen from our co-poster in this forum Pablito some believe it could be Caucasian. Last but not least, many say Minoan (and aegean languages) are extict group of languages that do not belong to any known group.

Greek as a language was not an external nor aboriginal language. It was a product of various people mixing, cooperating and trading with each other. The first speakers of it probably came out from a Greco-Phrygo-Armenian supergroup of farmers that were settled in the north and west Greece. The migrations to the north which caused a clash with the anatolian & other populations gave the final form to this language.

Other languages, PIE and non-IE may have been spoken as well. It is impossible to know however, since there's no translation to any scarce written evidence that exists.  The oldest evidence of writting in the area is 7250 years old, but it is impossible to get a translation out of it since between that time and the first Linear scripts there's a gap of litteracy stretching over 4000 years. 

In any case, the vast dictionary and synonyms of the Greek language is the evidence that Greek has a rich background of known and unknown languages that were once upon a time spoken in the Helladic area, the Aegian and anatolia.

Wow! I learned something new here. I really thought that "chinese" is the most widely spoken language.