Misplaced Pages

Part of a series on
Indo-European topics
Languages List of Indo-European languages Extant Albanoid Albanian Armenian Balto-Slavic Baltic Slavic Celtic Germanic Hellenic Greek Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Nuristani Italic Romance Extinct Anatolian Tocharian Paleo-Balkan Dacian Illyrian Liburnian Messapic Mysian Paeonian Phrygian Thracian Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language Phonology: Sound laws, Accent, Ablaut Hypothetical Balkanic Daco-Thracian Graeco-Albanian Graeco-Armenian Graeco-Aryan Graeco-Phrygian Indo-Hittite Italo-Celtic Thraco-Illyrian Grammar Vocabulary Root Verbs Nouns Pronouns Numerals Particles Other Proto-Albanian Proto-Anatolian Proto-Armenian Proto-Germanic (Proto-Norse) Proto-Italo-Celtic (Proto-Celtic · Proto-Italic) Proto-Greek Proto-Balto-Slavic (Proto-Slavic · Proto-Baltic) Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Iranian)
Philology Hittite inscriptions Hieroglyphic Luwian Linear B Rigveda Avesta Homer Behistun Greek epigraphy Phrygian epigraphy Messapic epigraphy Latin epigraphy Gaulish epigraphy Runic epigraphy Ogham Gothic Bible Bible translations into Armenian Tocharian script Old Irish glosses Albanian Kanun
Origins Homeland Proto-Indo-Europeans Society Religion Mainstream Kurgan hypothesis Indo-European migrations Eurasian nomads Alternative and fringe Anatolian hypothesis Armenian hypothesis Beech argument Indigenous Aryanism Baltic homeland Paleolithic continuity theory
Archaeology Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Pontic Steppe Domestication of the horse Kurgan Kurgan stelae Kurgan culture Steppe cultures Bug–Dniester Sredny Stog Dnieper–Donets Samara Khvalynsk Yamnaya Mikhaylovka culture Novotitarovskaya culture Caucasus Maykop East Asia Afanasievo Eastern Europe Usatovo Cernavodă Cucuteni Northern Europe Corded ware Baden Middle Dnieper Bronze Age Pontic Steppe Chariot Yamnaya Catacomb Multi-cordoned ware Poltavka Srubnaya Northern/Eastern Steppe Abashevo culture Andronovo Sintashta Europe Globular Amphora Corded ware Bell Beaker Únětice Trzciniec Nordic Bronze Age Terramare Tumulus Urnfield Lusatian South Asia BMAC Yaz Gandhara grave Iron Age Steppe Chernoles Europe Thraco-Cimmerian Hallstatt Jastorf Caucasus Colchian India Painted Grey Ware Northern Black Polished Ware
Peoples and societies Bronze Age Anatolian peoples (Hittites) Armenians Mycenaean Greeks Indo-Iranians Iron Age Indo-Aryans Indo-Aryans Iranians Iranians East Asia Wusun Yuezhi Europe Celts Gauls Celtiberians Insular Celts Cimmerians Hellenic peoples Italic peoples Germanic peoples Paleo-Balkan/Anatolia Thracians Dacians Illyrians Paeonians Phrygians Scythians Middle Ages East Asia Tocharians Europe Albanians Balts Slavs Norsemen/Medieval Scandinavians Middle Ages Indo-Aryan Medieval India Iranian Greater Iran
Religion and mythology Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology Proto-Indo-Iranian paganism Historical Vedic religion Ancient Iranian religion Historical Hittite Indo-Aryan Vedic Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism Iranian Persian Zoroastrianism Kurdish Yazidism Yarsanism Scythian Ossetian Others Armenian European Paleo-Balkan (Albanian · Illyrian · Thracian · Dacian) Greek Roman Celtic Irish Scottish Breton Welsh Cornish Germanic Anglo-Saxon Continental Norse Baltic Latvian Lithuanian Slavic Practices Fire rituals Horse sacrifice Sati Winter solstice/Yule
Indo-European studies Scholars Marija Gimbutas J. P. Mallory Institutes Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European Publications Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture The Horse, the Wheel, and Language Journal of Indo-European Studies Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch Indo-European Etymological Dictionary
v t e

Graeco-Aryan, or Graeco-Armeno-Aryan, is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family that would be the ancestor of Hellenic, Armenian, and the Indo-Iranian languages, which spans Southern Europe, Armenian highlands and Southern Asian regions of Eurasia.

The Graeco-Armeno-Aryan group supposedly branched off from the parent Indo-European stem by the mid-3rd millennium BC.

Relation to the possible homeland

In the context of the Kurgan hypothesis, Graeco-Aryan is also known as "Late Proto-Indo-European" or "Late Indo-European" to suggest that Graeco-Aryan forms a dialect group, which corresponds to the latest stage of linguistic unity in the Indo-European homeland in the early part of the 3rd millennium BC. By 2500 BC, Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian had separated and moved respectively westward and eastward from the Pontic Steppe.

If Graeco-Aryan is a valid group, Grassmann's law may have a common origin in Greek and Sanskrit. However, Grassmann's law in Greek postdates certain sound changes that happened only in Greek, not Sanskrit, which suggests that it could not have been inherited directly from a common Graeco-Aryan stage. Rather, it is more likely that an areal feature spread across a then-contiguous Graeco-Aryan–speaking area. That would have occurred after early stages of Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian had developed into separate dialects but before they ceased to be in geographic contact.

Scientific discussion

Evidence for the existence of a Graeco-Aryan subclade was given by Wolfram Euler's 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal inflection. Graeco-Aryan is invoked in particular in studies of comparative mythology such as Martin Litchfield West (1999) and Calvert Watkins (2001).

One controversial hypothesis has placed Greek in a Graeco-Armenian subclade of Indo-European, though some researchers have integrated both attempts by including also Armenian in a putative Graeco-Armeno-Aryan language family, further divided between Proto-Greek (possibly united with Phrygian) and thus arriving at an Armeno-Aryan subclade, the putative ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian.

Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists who support the Armenian hypothesis, which asserts that the homeland of the Indo-European language family was in the Armenian Highlands.

References

1. Martin Litchfield West, Indo-European poetry and myth (2007), p. 7.
2. Wolfram Euler: Indoiranisch-griechische Gemeinsamkeiten der Nominalbildung und deren indogermanische Grundlagen . Innsbruck, 1979 (in German).
3. Litchfield West, Martin (1999). "The Invention of Homer". Classical Quarterly. 49 (364).
4. Calvert Watkins (2001), How to Kill a Dragon, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-514413-0.
5. Kim, Ronald (2018). "Greco-Armenian: The persistence of a myth". Indogermanische Forschungen. The University of British Columbia Library. doi:10.1515/if-2018-0009. S2CID 231923312. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
6. James Clackson (1995). The Linguistic Relationship Between Armenian and Greek. Publications of the Philological Society.
7. Gray, Russell D.; Atkinson, Quentin D. (27 November 2003). "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin" (PDF). Nature. 426 (6965): 435–439. Bibcode:2003Natur.426..435G. doi:10.1038/nature02029. PMID 14647380. S2CID 42340. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 March 2009.
8. Handbook of Formal Languages (1997), p. 6.
9. "Indo-European tree with Armeno-Aryan, separate from Greek". Archived from the original on 2018-05-14. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
10. Renfrew, A. C., 1987, Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6612-5; T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, The Early History of Indo-European Languages, Scientific American, March 1990; Renfrew, Colin (2003). "Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in Proto-Indo-European". Languages in Prehistoric Europe. Winter. ISBN 3-8253-1449-9.
11. A. Bammesberger in The Cambridge History of the English Language, 1992, ISBN 978-0-521-26474-7, p. 32: the model "still remains the background of much creative work in Indo-European reconstruction" even though it is "by no means uniformly accepted by all scholars."
12. Mallory, James P. (1997). "Kuro-Araxes Culture". Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Fitzroy Dearborn: 341–42.

Bibliography

• Kim, Ronald I.. "Greco-Armenian: The persistence of a myth". In: Indogermanische Forschungen, vol. 123, no. 1, 2018, pp. 247–272. https://doi.org/10.1515/if-2018-0009

Further reading

• Martirosyan, Hrach. "The place of Armenian in the Indo-European language family: the relationship with Greek and Indo-Iranian". In: Journal of Language Relationship 10, no. 1 (2013): 85–138. https://doi.org/10.31826/jlr-2013-100107

v t e Armenian language
Origin	Armenian hypothesis Graeco-Armenian Armeno-Aryan
History	Proto-Armenian Classical Armenian (c. 405–1100) Middle Armenian (c. 1100–1700) Modern Armenian (from c. 1700) History of the Armenian alphabet
Alphabet	Orthography Classical Reformed Braille Romanization Numerals
Grammar	Verb table Eastern Western
Dialects	Standardized Western Eastern Regional dialects Homshetsi Iranian Armenian Kakavaberd Karabakh Karin Kharberd–Yerznka Mush Shabin–Karahisar Yerevan Zok
Literature	List of writers
Promotion and study	Armenian National Academy of Sciences Armenian studies
Related topics	Proverbs
Category

• Indo-European languages