Read of the Week (May 11 to May 17)

One ancient language transformed our world. This is its story. Star. Stjarna. Stare. Thousands of miles apart, people look up at the night sky and use the same word to describe what they see.

Listen to these English, Icelandic and Iranian words, and you can hear echoes of one of the most extraordinary journeys in humanity’s past. All three of these languages — and hundreds more — share a single ancient ancestor. Five millennia ago, this proto tongue exploded in a mysterious Big Bang of its own, forming new worlds as it spread east and west. Today, nearly half of humanity speaks an Indo-European language. How did this happen? In Proto, acclaimed journalist Laura Spinney sets off to find out. With her, we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the Silk Roads and the Hindu Kush. We follow in the footsteps of nomads and monks, Amazon warriors and lion kings — the ancient peoples who spread these tongues far and wide.

Laura Spinney is a science journalist and writer. She is the author of the celebrated Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World. Her writings have appeared in several reputed international publications.