Misplaced Pages

Armenian hypothesis

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Alex mond (talk | contribs) at 18:40, 16 June 2007. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 18:40, 16 June 2007 by Alex mond (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Part of a series on
Indo-European topics
Languages

Extant
Extinct

Reconstructed

Hypothetical

Grammar

Other
Philology
Origins
Mainstream

Alternative and fringe
Archaeology
Chalcolithic (Copper Age)

Pontic Steppe

Caucasus

East Asia

Eastern Europe

Northern Europe


Bronze Age

Pontic Steppe

Northern/Eastern Steppe

Europe

South Asia


Iron Age

Steppe

Europe

Caucasus

India

Peoples and societies
Bronze Age
Iron Age

Indo-Aryans

Iranians

East Asia

Europe

Middle Ages

East Asia

Europe

Indo-Aryan

Iranian

Religion and mythology
Reconstructed

Historical

Indo-Aryan

Iranian

Others

European

Practices
Indo-European studies
Scholars
Institutes
Publications

The Armenian hypothesis of the Proto-Indo-European Urheimat, based on the Glottalic theory assumes that the Proto-Indo-European language was spoken during the 3rd millennium BC in the Armenian Highland. It is an Indo-Hittite model and does not include the Anatolian languages in its scenario. PIE ("Graeco-Armeno-Aryan") would date to after 3000 BC and constitute a language group contemporary to, and in language contact with, the Anatolian language family adjacent to the west. The phonological peculiarities proposed in the Glottalic theory would be best preserved in the Armenian language and the Germanic languages, the former assuming the role of the dialect which remained in situ, implied to be particularly archaic in spite of its late attestation. Proto-Greek would be practically equivalent to Mycenean Greek and date to the 17th century BC, closely associating Greek migration to Greece with the Indo-Aryan migration to India at about the same time (viz., Indo-European expansion at the transition to the Late Bronze Age, including the possibility of Indo-European Kassites). The hypothesis has little or no support in Indo-European studies which usually assumes a higher age of PIE by at least one millennium. Like the Glottalic theory itself, the hypothesis enjoyed some popularity during the 1980s and has fallen from scholarly favour since.

The Armenian hypothesis argues for the latest possible date of Proto-Indo-European (sans Anatolian), a full millennium later than the mainstream Kurgan hypothesis. In this, it figures as an opposite to the Anatolian hypothesis, in spite of the geographical proximity of the respective Urheimaten suggested, diverging from the timeframe suggested there by full three millennia.

In accordance with some western sources, the Armenians have populated Eastern Anatolia for over four thousand years. Thus, many ancient records from Assyrian, Egyptian, and Persian identify with the Armenians. Such attempts were firmly rejected by Diakonoff (1984:129f.) However, certain theories for locating the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language, the Kuro-Araxes culture is identified with the speakers of the Anatolian languages, and even as an earlier Urheimat. Scholars Tamaz Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov place the homeland in Armenia, postulating the Armenian language as an in situ development of a 3rd millennium BC Proto-Indo-European language, as opposed to Diaknoff's view of a later Indo-European presents.

Notes

  1. "The Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russia and the Soviet Union". Retrieved 2007-03-01.
  2. Chahin, Mack (2001). The Kingdom of Armenia. Routledge (UK). pp. p. 182. ISBN 0700714529. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  3. Redgate, Elizabeth (1998). The Armenians. Blackwell Publishing. pp. p. 25. ISBN 0631220372. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  4. T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, The Early History of Indo-European (aka Aryan) Languages, Scientific American, March 1990; James P. Mallory, "Kuro-Araxes Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
  5. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1915; Eric H. Cline and David O'Connor (eds.) Thutmose III, University of Michigan, 2006, ISBN 978-0472114672.
  6. surviving in an early Babylonian copy, ca. 2200 BC, URI 275, lines I.7, 13; II.4; III.3, 30.
  7. Horace Abram Rigg, Jr., A Note on the Names Armânum and Urartu, Journal of the American Oriental Society (1937).
  8. no. 92 of Schroeder's 1920 Keilschrifttexte aus Assur; W. F. Albright, A Babylonian Geographical Treatise on Sargon of Akkad's Empire, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 45. (1925), p. 212.
  9. cited by P. Kohl and G. Tzetzkhladze, 'Nationalism, politics, and the practice of archaeology in the Caucasus', in: Kohl, Fawcett (eds.), Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology, Cambridge University Press (1996), ISBN 0521558395, p. 176;
  10. Royal Scottish Geographical Society - 1999, Published 1999, p:12
  11. James P. Mallory, "Kuro-Araxes Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

See also

References

  • T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, The Early History of Indo-European Languages, Scientific American, March 1990
  • I.M. Diakonoff, The Prehistory of the Armenian People (1984).
  • Robert Drews, The Coming of the Greeks (1988), argues for late Greek arrival in the framework of the Armenian hypothesis.
  • Martiros Kavoukjian, Armenia, Subartu, and Sumer : the Indo-European homeland and ancient Mesopotamia, trans. N. Ouzounian, Montreal (1987), ISBN 0921885008.
Categories: