This book investigates the historical and ongoing processes of grammatical convergence that are causing the diverse languages and dialects of Europe to become increasingly similar. Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva, both established scholars in the field of linguistics, utilize extensive comparative data to argue that this unification is not a modern phenomenon but one rooted in Roman history. They present a framework that tracks how minute, often imperceptible grammatical shifts across various language families—including non-Indo-European languages like Basque and Finnish—are fundamentally altering the continent's linguistic landscape.

Linguists and scholars frequently cite this work as a significant contribution to the study of language contact and areal linguistics. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which provides a rigorous examination of grammatical structures for those familiar with the field.