I recently started the study of an excellent book “The Horse, the Wheel and Language”, which is a very accessible, but information dense book. If you wish to read the book, read the criticisms (which are not many) when you’re done with the first chapter. Two more books in this category that are highly recommended, but not personally by me since I haven’t read them are: Indo-European Poetry and Myth and How to Kill a Dragon. These books (as well as the Etymology scriptorium) are the inspiration of this essay. The point of this essay is to convince you, that if you know two or even one PIE(s), you can ease your learning path with a few techniques.
For me, I am a native speaker of Hindi (and a few sister/children languages) and English. My goal is to learn Spanish and Russian. My first thesis – is that by understanding PIE, I can sufficiently broaden my vocabulary, and also increase my interoperability with other languages in the family. My second thesis – is that by maximising vocabulary via recall and immersion (as children learn), I will outpace anyone learning traditionally with lesser invested hours.
[Under construction]