Washington Ho!

It is no secret that man has long had a long and storied relationship with horses. Literal horsepower built this country, carried us into battle, plowed our fields, delivered our messages and helped us explore new territories. Now, according to David W. Anthony, it seems equines are also responsible for the spread of the English language.

In a new book entitled The Horse, The Wheel,and Language, Anthony explores the role that horses played in the dissemination of the Indo-European language family, of which English is a member. Christine Kenneally reviews Anthony's tome in Sunday's New York Times Book Review and says that Anthony makes a persuasive case for the origin of the Indo-European mother tongue, which is known as Proto-Indo-European, in what is now southern Ukraine and Russia. "Anthony is not the first scholar to make the case that Proto-Indo-European came from this region," Kenneally writes. "But given the immense array of evidence he presents, he may be the last one who has to."

Horses are important in the proliferation of this mother tongue because they literally mobilized Proto-Indo-European speakers helping them become mobile herders and later warriors. "The impact of horses on the reach of language is particularly important to Anthony, and he conveys his excitement at working out whether ancient horses wore bits (and were therefore ridden by Proto-Indo-Europeans) by comparing their teeth to those of modern domesticated and wild horses," Kenneally writes.

According to Kenneally, Anthony also cites "remarkable genetic analyses suggesting that although all the domesticated horses in the world may have come from many different wild mothers, they might all share a single father."

As I embark upon my Washington adventure I think it is important to remember not only the depths of man's relationship with horses but also the dual nature of this relationship. Like other animals, man has both depended on and been dependent on horses and therein lie the two positions surrounding the legislation before Congress. It is my intention to cover this debate from an objective perspective so be prepared to read about both sides of the story.

After all, that is what I do.