'Indo-European people' are the speakers of the
Indo-European languages, a major
language family of
Eurasia. In the context of
linguistics, the term usually refers to
Bronze Age (third to second millennia BC) speakers of Indo-European languages that had not yet split into the attested sub-families, viz. early
Centum and Satem dialects (speakers of languages predating
Proto-Indo-Iranian,
Proto-Armenian,
Proto-Greek,
Proto-Celtic,
Proto-Italic,
Proto-Germanic,
Proto-Balto-Slavic etc.) The term is also used to apply to the
Proto-Indo-Europeans, speakers of the hypothetical
Proto-Indo-European language from which all Indo-European languages ultimately stem.
"Indo-Europeans" does ''not'' usually refer to speakers of various Indo-European languages in historical times. Linguists usually refer to such people specifically by the language in question:
Anatolians,
Tocharians,
Aryans (
Iranians,
Indo-Aryans),
Greeks,
Celts,
Italic peoples,
Germanic peoples,
Baltic peoples,
Slavic peoples,
Armenians,
Albanians (or subdivisions of these groups).