Old European (alteuropäisch) is the term used by Krahe (1964) for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of Indo-European hydronymy in Central and Western Europe. The character of these river names is pre-Germanic and pre-Celtic and dated by Krahe to the 2nd millennium BC. Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies Indo-European is originally a linguistic term, referring to the Indo-European language family. ... World map showing Europe Political map (neighbouring countries in Asia and Africa also shown) Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. ... Proto-Celtic, also called Common Celtic, is the putative ancestor of all the known Celtic languages. ... (3rd millennium BC – 2nd millennium BC – 1st millennium BC – other millennia) // Events To grasp the spirit of the 2nd millennium BC, we must divide it in two parts, for there is a period of change around its middle so important that it creates two separate sub-millennia. First half (2000...

Old European river names are found in the Baltic and southern Scandinavia, in Central Europe, France, the British Isles, the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. Notably exempt are the Balkans and Greece, as well as the Eastern European parts associated with Slavic settlement. This area is associated with the spread of the later "Western" Indo-European dialects, the Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Baltic and Illyrian branches. Baltic can refer to: The Baltic Sea Council of the Baltic Sea States - an intergovernmental organization Baltic sea countries - countries with access to the Baltic Sea The Baltic region (Balticum) Baltic States - the independent countries of Estonia Latvia Lithuania Baltic Republics - term refers to the three Baltic states under the... Scandinavia is a region in Northern Europe. ... Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. ... Location of the British Isles Great Britain, Ireland and several thousand smaller surrounding islands and islets form an archipelago off the northwest coast of continental Europe which is most commonly known as the British Isles. ... The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe. ... Balkan peninsula with northwest border Isonzo-Krka-Sava The Balkans is the historic and geographic name used to describe a region of southeastern Europe. ... Eastern Europe is the eastern region of Europe variably defined. ... The Slavic peoples are the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. ... The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ... The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. ... The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in pre-Roman times. ...

Krahe locates the geographical nucleus of this area as stretching from the Baltic across Poland and Germany to the Swiss plateau and the upper Danube north of the Alps, while he considers the Old European river names of southern France, Italy and Spain to be later imports, replacing "Aegean-Pelasgian" and Iberian substrates (p. 81), corresponding to Italic, Celtic and Illyrian "invasions" from about 1300 BC. Baltic can refer to: The Baltic Sea Council of the Baltic Sea States - an intergovernmental organization Baltic sea countries - countries with access to the Baltic Sea The Baltic region (Balticum) Baltic States - the independent countries of Estonia Latvia Lithuania Baltic Republics - term refers to the three Baltic states under the... The Swiss plateau (plateau suisse in French, Schweizer Mittelland in German) constitutes one of the three major landscapes in Switzerland alongside the Jura mountains and the Alps. ... The Danube bend at Visegrád is a popular destination of tourists The Danube (ancient Danuvius) is Europes second-longest river (after the Volga). ... The West face of the Petit Dru above the Chamonix valley near the Mer de Glace. ... The Aegean languages are a presumed language family originally spreading horizontally from Greece to Western Turkey and vertically from the southern Grecian coastline, across the Aegean islands, to Crete sometime before 1200 BCE. It is certain that Etruscan, Rhaetic and Lemnian are part of this grouping. ... Ancient Greek writers used the name Pelasgian to refer to groups of people who preceded the Greeks and dwelt in several locations in mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean as neighbors of the Hellenes. ... The Iberian language describes a linguistic group identified with the Iberian civilization (7th century BC – 1st century BC), formed in the eastern and south-eastern regions of the Iberian peninsula. ... Italic peoples are all those peoples that lived in Italy before the Roman domination. ... The Celtiberians dwelt in the Iberian Peninsula and spoke a Celtic language. ... Illyrians has come to refer to a broad, ill-defined group of peoples who inhabited the western Balkans (Illyria, roughly from northern Epirus to southern Pannonia) and even perhaps parts of Southern Italy in classical times into the Common era, and spoke Illyrian languages. ...

"Old European" in this sense is not to be confused with the term as used by Marija Gimbutas who applies it to Neolithic Europe. Marija Gimbutas by Kerbstone 52, at the back of Newgrange, Co. ... Map showing the Neolithic expansions from the 7th to the 5th millennium BC Europe in ca. ...

See also

• Tyrrhenian languages
• Rigvedic rivers
• Urnfield culture
• Beaker culture

A close relationship of the Etruscan language and the Rhaetic language has been established by Rix (1998), who together with the Lemnian language classifies them as Tyrsenian (Tyrsenisch, also Tyrrhenian), after the Tyrrhenoi. ... Rivers play a prominent part in the hymns of the Rigveda, and consequently in early Vedic religion. ... The Urnfield culture of central European culture is dated roughly between 1300 BC and 750 BC. The name describes the custom of cremating the dead and placing them in cemeteries. ... approximate extent of the Beaker culture The Beaker culture (also Bell-Beaker culture, Beaker people, or Beaker folk, German Glockenbecherkultur), ca. ...

References

• Hans Krahe, Unsere ältesten Flussnamen, Wiesbaden (1964).