12 SANSKRIT AND INDO-EUROPEAN uncommon to find in works of general history or linguistics a conception that somewhere about the second half of the third millennium b.c. a single undivided Indo-European occupying a comparatively restricted area being taken by a series of migra- tions to the various countries where IE languages are later found, after which migrations the various individual languages were evolved. But it is now becoming clear that by this period the various members of the family must have already begun to assume their historic form. For instance when the Indo- Iranians first set off on their migrations from Europe, very likely about 2000 b.c. as is often suggested, they took with them not Indo-European which they subsequently proceeded to change into Indo-Iranian, but the Indo-Iranian which we can reconstruct, which had already assumed its essential features in the original European homeland. It is clear that once the migrations began over such wide territories all opportunities for unitary development of Indo-Iranian must have ceased, and since, as we have observed there quite undoubtedly was at one time a unitary development of Indo-Iranian, this must have taken place before any migrations began. What applies to Indo-Iranian must apply with equal force to the other members of the family. We have already remarked on the deep divergencies between the various European mem- bers of the family, and this can only be accounted for by pushing back the period of original division to a period much earlier than is usually assumed. If there ever existed a unitary Indo- European which spread from a restricted area, this lies long behind the earliest period which can be reached by any com- parison. ' Primitive Indo-European ’ must be regarded as a continuum of related dialects occupying an extensive territory in Europe (very likely the major part of the area indicated above), dialects which already before the period of the great migrations had begun to assume the character of separate languages. §3. Divisions of Indo-European The question of the early Indo-European dialects has been the subject of considerable study and some useful results have been acquired. It is possible to form a fair idea of their distribu- tion in the period preceding the emergence of the individual
