Before
World War II, all the unclassified languages of
Europe and the
Near East were commonly referred to as
Asianic languages, and the term encompassed several languages that were later found to be Indo-European (such as
Lydian), and others (such as
Hurro-Urartian,
Hattic,
Elamite,
Kassite,
Colchian and
Sumerian) which were classified as distinct pre-Indo-European language families or
language isolates. In 1953, the linguist
Johannes Hubschmid identified at least five pre-Indo-European language families in Western Europe: Eurafrican, which covered North Africa, Italy, Spain and France; Hispano-Caucasian, which replaced Eurafrican and stretched from Northern Spain to the
Caucasus Mountains;
Iberian, which was spoken by most of Spain prior to the
Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula;
Libyan, which was spoken mostly in
North Africa but encroached into
Sardinia; and
Etruscan, which was spoken in Northern Italy. The term pre-Indo-European is not universally accepted, as some linguists maintain the idea of the relatively late arrival of the speakers of the unclassified languages to Europe, possibly even after the Indo-European languages, and so prefer to speak about non-Indo-European languages. The newer term
Paleo-European languages is proposed as a preferable description, but is not applicable to the languages that predated or coexisted with Indo-European outside Europe. ==Surviving languages==