The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c16.10

v1.c16.10

If, as has been suggested above, the early speakers of the primitive Indo-Germanic language occupied a limited area well defended by mountains from attack, this would account for the general similarity of the languages in detail; if, forced by the natural increase of population, they left this habitat in great waves of migration, we can see how some languages of the family, as for example, the Celtic and the Italic, or the Irānian and the Indian, are more closely related to one another than they are to other members of the family; if, further, we assume that such a habitat for the prehistoric stock could be found in the lands which we call Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia, we can explain a very large number of facts hitherto collected for the history of their earlier movements and earlier civilisation.