Indo-European linguistics 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 p ...

, the term Indo-Hittite (also Indo-Anatolian) refers to

Edgar Howard Sturtevant Edgar Howard Sturtevant (March 7, 1875 – July 1, 1952) was an American linguist. Biography Sturtevant was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, the older brother of Alfred Sturtevant and grandson of educator Julian Monson Sturtevant. He studied at ...

's 1926 hypothesis that the

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

split off a Pre-

Proto-Indo-European language 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-Eu ...

considerably earlier than the separation of the remaining

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

. 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 In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...

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 Harold Craig Melchert (born April 5, 1945) is an American linguist known particularly for his work on the Anatolian branch of Indo-European. Biography He received his B.A. in German from Michigan State University in 1967 and his Ph.D. in Lingui ...

, 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." 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.

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 Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory, Kurgan model, or steppe theory) is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and part ...

, the split is estimated to have occurred in roughly 4000 BC. Some fundamental shared features such as the

aorist Aorist ( ; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the ...

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 and to Tocharian. 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 The following is a table of many of the most fundamental Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) words and roots, with their cognates in all of the major families of descendants. Notes The following conventions are used: * Cognates are in general given ...

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 Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

. In favor of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis is the very Indo-European agricultural terminology conserved in Anatolia, otherwise considered the cradle of agriculture, and the

laryngeal theory The laryngeal theory is a theory in historical linguistics positing that the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language included a number of laryngeal consonants that are not linguistic reconstruction, reconstructable by direct application of the com ...

that hypothesizes the existence of one or more additional spirant or

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

s in the Indo-European parent language that has only been attested in Hittite and of which only traces are left outside Anatolian. 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 Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

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.

Genetics

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

Notes

References

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Linguistics

Genetics

See also

Notes

References

Further reading