Indo-Hittite

Last updated
Indo-Hittite
Linguistic classification Proposed primary language family
Proto-languageProto-Indo-Hittite
Subdivisions
ISO 639-2 / 5 ine
Glottolog indo1319  (Indo-European)

In Indo-European linguistics, the term Indo-Hittite (also Indo-Anatolian) is Edgar Howard Sturtevant's 1926 hypothesis that the Anatolian languages split off a Pre-Proto-Indo-European language considerably earlier than the separation of the remaining Indo-European languages. The prefix Indo- does not refer to the Indo-Aryan branch in particular, but is stands for Indo-European, and the -Hittite part refers to the Anatolian language family as a whole.

Contents

Proponents of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis claim the separation preceded the spread of the remaining branches by several millennia, possibly as early as 7000 BC. In this context, the proto-language before the split of Anatolian would be called Proto-Indo-Hittite, and the proto-language of the remaining branches, before the next split, presumably of Tocharian, would be called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). This is a matter of terminology, though, as the hypothesis does not dispute the ultimate genetic relation of Anatolian with Indo-European; it just means to emphasize the assumed magnitude of temporal separation.

According to Craig Melchert, the current tendency is to suppose that Proto-Indo-European evolved, and that the "prehistoric speakers" of Anatolian became isolated "from the rest of the PIE speech community, so as not to share in some common innovations." [1] Hittite, as well as its Anatolian cousins, split off from Proto-Indo-European at an early stage, thereby preserving archaisms that were later lost in the other Indo-European languages. [2]

Linguistics

Traditionally there has been a strong notion among Indo-European linguistics that the Anatolian branch was separated earlier than other branches. Within the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis, the split is estimated to have occurred in roughly 4000 BC.

Some fundamental shared features such as the aorist category of the verb (which denotes action without reference to duration or completion), with the perfect active particle -s fixed to the stem, link the Anatolian languages closer to the southeastern languages such as Greek and Armenian [3] and to Tocharian. [4]

Features such as the lack of feminine gender in the declensions of nominals, a division between an "animate" common gender and an "inanimate" neuter gender, a reduced vowel system, a tendency towards a greater simplicity of the case system, a less typical Indo-European vocabulary and other striking features have been interpreted alternately as archaic retentions, which means that the common Indo-European structural features observed in the non-Anatolian branches evolved at a later stage, or just as later innovations being caused by prolonged contacts in typologically alien surroundings "en route" or after their arrival in Anatolia.

In favor of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis are the very Indo-European agricultural terminology conserved in Anatolia, otherwise considered the cradle of agriculture, and the laryngeal theory that hypothesizes the existence of one or more additional spirant or stop consonants in the Indo-European parent language that has only been attested in Hittite and of which only traces are left outside Anatolian. [5]

However, in general this hypothesis is considered to attribute too much weight to the Anatolian evidence and as early as 1938 it was demonstrated that the Anatolian group should be placed on the same level as other Indo-European subgroups and not as equal with Indo-European. According to another view the Anatolian subgroup left the Indo-European parent language comparatively late, approximately at the same time as Indo-Iranian and later than the Greek or Armenian divisions. A third view, especially prevalent in the so-called French school of Indo-European studies, holds that extant similarities in non-satem languages in general—including Anatolian—might be due to their peripheral location in the Indo-European language area and early separation, rather than indicating a special ancestral relationship. [6]

Genetics

Recent paleogenetic studies of population migration reportedly give new credence to Proto-Indo-Anatolian theories, [7] but several linguists have disputed this and believe that genetics cannot accurately describe historical language change. [8]

See also

Notes

  1. Melchert 2012 , p. 7.
  2. Jasanoff 2003 , p. 20 with footnote 41
  3. Britannica 15th edition 22:593
  4. Adams, Douglas Q.; Lane, George S. (2010) [1974]. "The Tocharian problem". In Preece, Warren E.; Goetz, Philip W. (eds.). Tocharian languages. Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (15th ed.). p. 667. ISBN   978-1-59339-292-5.
  5. Britannica 15th edition, 22 p. 586, 589, 593
  6. Britannica 15th edition, 22 p. 594, "Indo-Hittite hypothesis"
  7. Lazaridis, Iosif; et al. (2022). "The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe". Science. 377 (6609): eabm4247. doi: 10.1126/science.abm4247 . PMC   10064553 . PMID   36007055. S2CID   251843620.
  8. Pereltsvaig, Asya (2015). The Indo-European Controversy: Facts and Fallacies in Historical Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-1107054530.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hittites</span> Ancient Anatolian people of Kussara

The Hittites were an Anatolian Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of Bronze Age West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in modern day Turkey in the early 2nd millennium BC. The Hittites formed a series of polities in north-central Anatolia, including the kingdom of Kussara, the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom, and an empire centered on Hattusa. Known in modern times as the Hittite Empire, it reached its peak during the mid-14th century BC under Šuppiluliuma I, when it encompassed most of Anatolia and parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indo-European languages</span> Language family native to Eurasia

The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family—English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, and Spanish—have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, of which there are eight groups with languages still alive today: Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic; another nine subdivisions are now extinct.

The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia, part of present-day Turkey. The best known Anatolian language is Hittite, which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laryngeal theory</span> Hypothesis that Proto-Indo-European had phonemes beyond those reconstructed through comparison

The laryngeal theory is a theory in historical linguistics positing that the Proto-Indo-European language included a number of laryngeal consonants that are not reconstructable by direct application of the comparative method to the Indo-European family. The "missing" sounds remain consonants of an indeterminate place of articulation towards the back of the mouth, though further information is difficult to derive. Proponents aim to use the theory to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luwian language</span> Ancient Indo-European language of the Hittite Empire

Luwian, sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from Luwiya – the name of the region in which the Luwians lived. Luwiya is attested, for example, in the Hittite laws.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hittite language</span> Extinct Bronze Age Indo-European language

Hittite, also known as Nesite, is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a people of Bronze Age Anatolia who created an empire centred on Hattusa, as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. The language, now long extinct, is attested in cuneiform, in records dating from the 17th to the 13th centuries BC, with isolated Hittite loanwords and numerous personal names appearing in an Old Assyrian context from as early as the 20th century BC, making it the earliest attested use of the Indo-European languages.

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages.

Palaic is an extinct Indo-European language, attested in cuneiform tablets in Bronze Age Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites. Palaic, which was apparently spoken mainly in northern Anatolia, is generally considered to be one of four primary sub-divisions of the Anatolian languages, alongside Hittite, Luwic and Lydian.

Proto-Indo-European society is the reconstructed culture of Proto-Indo-Europeans, the ancient speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, ancestor of all modern Indo-European languages.

The Anatolians were Indo-European-speaking peoples of the Anatolian Peninsula in present-day Turkey, identified by their use of the Anatolian languages. These peoples were among the oldest Indo-European ethnolinguistic groups and one of the most archaic, because Anatolians were among the first Indo-European peoples to separate from the Proto-Indo-European community that gave origin to the individual Indo-European peoples.

Graeco-Armenian is the hypothetical common ancestor of Greek and Armenian branches that postdates Proto-Indo-European language. Its status is somewhat similar to that of the Italo-Celtic grouping: each is widely considered plausible without being accepted as established communis opinio. The hypothetical Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage would need to date to the 3rd millennium BC and would be only barely different from either late Proto-Indo-European or Graeco-Armeno-Aryan.

The Anatolian hypothesis, also known as the Anatolian theory or the sedentary farmer theory, first developed by British archaeologist Colin Renfrew in 1987, proposes that the dispersal of Proto-Indo-Europeans originated in Neolithic Anatolia. It is the main competitor to the Kurgan hypothesis, or steppe theory, which enjoys more academic favor.

The Armenian hypothesis, also known as the Near Eastern model, is a theory of the Proto-Indo-European homeland, initially proposed by linguists Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav Ivanov in the early 1980s, which suggests that the Proto-Indo-European language was spoken during the 5th–4th millennia BC in "eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus, and northern Mesopotamia".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proto-Indo-European homeland</span> Prehistoric "Urheimat" of the Indo-European languages

The Proto-Indo-European homeland was the prehistoric linguistic homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). From this region, its speakers migrated east and west, and went on to form the proto-communities of the different branches of the Indo-European language family.

Edgar Howard Sturtevant was an American linguist.

The Indo-European Etymological Dictionary is a research project of the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, initiated in 1991 by Peter Schrijver and others. It is financially supported by the Faculty of Humanities and Centre for Linguistics of Leiden University, Brill Publishers, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

Jay Harold Jasanoff is an American linguist and Indo-Europeanist, best known for his h2e-conjugation theory of the Proto-Indo-European verbal system. He teaches Indo-European linguistics and historical linguistics at Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centum and satem languages</span> Indo-European linguistic classification

Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An example of the different developments is provided by the words for "hundred" found in the early attested Indo-European languages. In centum languages, they typically began with a sound, but in satem languages, they often began with.

The grammar of the Hittite language has a highly conservative verbal system and rich nominal declension. The language is attested in cuneiform, and is the earliest attested Indo-European language.

Hittite phonology is the description of the reconstructed phonology or pronunciation of the Hittite language. Because Hittite as a spoken language is extinct, thus leaving no living daughter languages, and no contemporary descriptions of the pronunciation are known, little can be said with certainty about the phonetics and the phonology of the language. Some conclusions can be made, however, by noting its relationship to the other Indo-European languages, by studying its orthography and by comparing loanwords from nearby languages.

References

Further reading