Indo-European Studies
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Indo-European Studies
Indo-European studies () is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical proto-language from which all of these languages are descended, a language dubbed Proto-Indo-European (PIE), and its speakers, the Proto-Indo-Europeans, including their society and Proto-Indo-European mythology. The studies cover where the language originated and how it spread. This article also lists Indo-European scholars, centres, journals and book series. Naming The term ''Indo-European'' itself now current in English literature, was coined in 1813 by the British scholar Sir Thomas Young, although at that time, there was no consensus as to the naming of the recently discovered language family. However, he seems to have used it as a geographical term, to indicate the newly proposed language family in Eurasia spanning from the Indian sub ...
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Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages), phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language, and analogous systems of sign languages), and pragmatics (how the context of use contributes to meaning). Subdisciplines such as biolinguistics (the study of the biological variables and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) bridge many of these divisions. Linguistics encompasses Outline of linguistics, many branches and subfields that span both theoretical and practical applications. Theoretical linguistics is concerned with understanding the universal grammar, universal and Philosophy of language#Nature of language, fundamental nature of language and developing a general ...
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Japhetites
The term Japhetites (sometimes spelled Japhethites; in adjective form Japhetic or Japhethitic) refers to the descendants of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis. The term was used in ethnological and linguistic writings from the 18th to the 20th centuries as a Biblically derived racial classification for the European peoples, but is now considered obsolete. Medieval ethnographers believed that the world had been divided into three large-scale groupings, corresponding to the three classical continents: the Semitic peoples of Asia, the Hamitic peoples of Africa, and the Japhetic peoples of Europe. Javakhishvili, Ivane (1950), ''Historical-Ethnological problems of Georgia, the Caucasus and the Near East''. Tbilisi, pp. 130–135 (in Georgian). The term has been used in modern times as a designation in physical anthropology, ethnography, and comparative linguistics. In anthropology, it was used in a racial sense for White people (the Caucasian race). I ...
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Historical Linguistics
Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical linguistics involves several key areas of study, including the reconstruction of ancestral languages, the classification of languages into families, ( comparative linguistics) and the analysis of the cultural and social influences on language development. This field is grounded in the uniformitarian principle, which posits that the processes of language change observed today were also at work in the past, unless there is clear evidence to suggest otherwise. Historical linguists aim to describe and explain changes in individual languages, explore the history of speech communities, and study the origins and meanings of words ( etymology). Development Modern historical linguistics dates to the late 18th century, having originally grown o ...
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Comparative Method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards to infer the properties of that ancestor. The comparative method may be contrasted with the method of internal reconstruction in which the internal development of a single language is inferred by the analysis of features within that language. Ordinarily, both methods are used together to reconstruct prehistoric phases of languages; to fill in gaps in the historical record of a language; to discover the development of phonological, morphological and other linguistic systems and to confirm or to refute hypothesised relationships between languages. The comparative method emerged in the early 19th century with the birth of Indo-European studies, then took a definite scientific approach with the works of the Neogrammarians in the late 19th†...
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Indo-Hittite
In Indo-European linguistics, the term Indo-Hittite (also Indo-Anatolian) refers to 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 stands for ''Indo-European'', and the ''-Hittite'' part refers to the Anatolian language family as a whole. 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 ...
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August Friedrich Pott
August Friedrich Pott (14 November 1802 in Nettelrede, Electorate of Hanover, Hanover5 July 1887 in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Halle) was a German pioneer in linguistics. Life Pott was a theology student at the University of Göttingen, where he became interested in philology, philosophy, and history. He became a schoolmaster in Celle, but completed his doctoral dissertation, ''De relationibus quae praepositionibus in Linguis denotantur'', in 1827 at Göttingen University. As he was not satisfied giving classes in Celle, he went to the University of Berlin to study with Franz Bopp, an important pioneer in Indo-European linguistics. He became an unsalaried lecturer in general linguistics there in 1830, after having completed his habilitation, and became the professor of general linguistics at the University of Halle in 1833, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was a cofounder of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, which aims at promoting research on oriental langua ...
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Julius Von Klapproth
Heinrich Julius Klaproth (11 October 1783 – 28 August 1835) was a German linguist, historian, ethnographer, author, orientalist and explorer. As a scholar, he is credited along with Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat with being instrumental in turning East Asian Studies into scientific disciplines with critical methods. Name H. J. Klaproth was usually known as Julius or Julius von Klaproth. His name also erroneously appears as "Julius Heinrich Klaproth". Life Klaproth was born in Berlin on 11 October 1783, the son of the chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who is credited with the discovery of four elements including uranium.Walravensp. 178./ref> Young Klaproth devoted his energies in quite early life to the study of Asiatic languages, and published in 1802 his ''Asiatisches Magazin'' (Weimar 1802–1803). He was in consequence called to Saint Petersburg and given an appointment in the academy there. In 1805 he was a member of Count Golovkin's embassy to China. On his return he w ...
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Franz Bopp
Franz Bopp (; 14 September 1791 â€“ 23 October 1867) was a German linguistics, linguist known for extensive and pioneering comparative linguistics, comparative work on Indo-European languages. Early life Bopp was born in Mainz, but the political disarray in the Republic of Mainz caused his parents' move to Aschaffenburg, the second seat of the Archbishop of Mainz. There he received a liberal education at the Lyceum and Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann drew his attention to the languages and literature of the East. (Windischmann, along with Georg Friedrich Creuzer, Joseph Görres, and the brothers Friedrich Schlegel, Schlegel, expressed great enthusiasm for Indian wisdom and philosophy.) Moreover, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel's book, ''Ăśber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier'' (''On the Speech and Wisdom of the Indians'', Heidelberg, 1808), had just begun to exert a powerful influence on the minds of German philosophers and historians, and stimulated Bopp's intere ...
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Afro-Asiatic Languages
The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara and Sahel. Over 500 million people are native speakers of an Afroasiatic language, constituting the fourth-largest language family after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo. Most linguists divide the family into six branches: Berber (Amazigh), Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic, and Semitic. The vast majority of Afroasiatic languages are considered indigenous to the African continent, including all those not belonging to the Semitic branch (which originated in West Asia). The five most spoken languages are; Arabic (of all varieties) which is by far the most widely spoken within the family, with around 411 million native speakers concentrated primarily in West Asia and North Africa, the Chadic Hausa language w ...
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Ham, Son Of Noah
Ham (in ), according to the Table of Nations in the Book of Genesis, was the second son of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan. Ham's descendants are interpreted by Josephus and others as having populated Africa. The Bible refers to Egypt as "the land of Ham" in Psalm 78:51; 105:23, 27; 106:22; 1 Chronicles 4:40. Etymology Since the 17th century, a number of suggestions have been made that relate the name ''Ham'' to a Hebrew word for "burnt", "black" or "hot", to the Egyptian word '' ḥm'' for "servant" or the word '' ḥm'' for "majesty" or the Egyptian word '' kmt'' for "Egypt". A 2004 review of David Goldenberg's ''The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam'' (2003) states that Goldenberg "argues persuasively that the biblical name Ham bears no relationship at all to the notion of blackness and as of now is of unknown etymology." In the Bible indicates that Noah became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth at the ...
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Hamitic
Hamites is the name formerly used for some North Africa, Northern and Horn of Africa peoples in the context of a Scientific racism, now-outdated model of dividing humanity into different races; this was developed originally by Europeans in support of colonialism and slavery. The term was originally borrowed from the Book of Genesis, in which it refers to the descendants of Ham (son of Noah), Ham, son of Noah. The term was originally used in contrast to the other two proposed divisions of mankind based on the story of Noah: Semites and Japhetites. The appellation ''Hamitic'' was applied to the Berber languages, Berber, Cushitic languages, Cushitic, and Egyptian language, Egyptian branches of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family, which, together with the Semitic languages, Semitic branch, was formerly labelled "Hamito-Semitic". Because the three Hamitic branches have not been shown to form an exclusive (Monophyly, monophyletic) phylogenetic unit of their own, sepa ...
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Shem
Shem (; ''Šēm''; ) is one of the sons of Noah in the Bible ( Genesis 5–11 and 1 Chronicles 1:4). The children of Shem are Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram, in addition to unnamed daughters. Abraham, the patriarch of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, is one of the descendants of Arphaxad. In medieval and early modern European tradition he was considered to be the ancestor of the peoples of Asia, Javakhishvili, Ivane (1950), ''Historical-Ethnological problems of Georgia, the Caucasus and the Near East''. Tbilisi, pp. 130–135 (in Georgian). and he gives his name to the title " Semites" formerly given to West Asian peoples. Islamic literature describes Shem as one of the believing sons of Noah. Some sources even identify Shem as a prophet in his own right and that he was the next prophet after his father. In the Bible Genesis 10 Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity to have yielded different Engli ...
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