Professor John McWhorter takes a look at the concept of language families, how languages change over time and what linguistics can teach humans about their own history.

Diving into the earliest roots of Indo-European languages with a look at Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, Greek, Albanian and Celtic languages; how Indo-European languages contradict common notions about language; mysteries yet to be solved.

Tracing back to the branching of the Indo-European tree, when the European languages split from the Indo-Aryan varieties; exploring many variations that evolve; why it can be so difficult to differentiate between a language and a dialect.

Focusing on the "click" languages, some of the most endangered languages in the world; these endangered languages share a distinctive profile, yet likely do not all come from a single family; exploring where they may have begun; how they work.