Indo-Hittite hypothesis

Among the Indo-Europeans (despite the mutually exclusive hypotheses about the ancestral home), there is generally consensus that the Anatolian branch separated from the rest of the Indo-European languages ​​earlier than other branches. In the framework of the old barrow hypothesis (now chronologically revised), the separation time was estimated at about 4000 BC.

Some fundamental common features, such as an aorist (a category of a verb denoting an action without indicating duration or completion), with the perfect particle -s at the root, associate the Anatolian languages ​​more likely with southeastern Indo-European languages, such as Greek, Armenian ^[1] and Tocharian. ^[2]

Such signs as the absence of a feminine gender in the case paradigms of names (nouns and adjectives), the juxtaposition of the “active” general gender (nominative paradigm) and the “inactive” middle gender (ergative paradigm), a simplified vowel system, a much simpler case paradigm, less typical for Indo-European languages, the lexicon and other distinctive features were explained by different experts either as ancient artifacts, or as nuclear signs for future development, or as a result of long contacts with ipologicheski different languages ​​around on the way to Anatolia or after their arrival in Anatolia. The Indo-Hittite hypothesis may be supported by the commonality of agricultural terminology with other Indo-European languages ​​(since, from the point of view of Anatolian supporters, the separation of languages ​​began in Anatolia, which is considered the cradle of agriculture), as well as the laryngeal theory according to which one or several additional explosive or spirants in the Indo-European parent language, which are attested in the Hittite language , but only rudimentarily - in IE languages ​​outside A natolia. ^[3]

However, opponents of the hypothesis point out that it pays too much weight to evidence from the Anatolian branch. Critics believe that the Anatolian group should be located on the same level with other groups of the Indo-European tree, and not as an equal branch of "all other Indo-European." According to another point of view, the Anatolian subgroup separated from the Indo-European proto-language relatively late, at about the same time as the Aryan, and even later than the Greco-Armenian branch. The third point of view, especially widespread in the so-called French school of Indo-European studies, argues that the preserved similarity in non-native languages ​​in general (including Anatolian) may be due to their peripheral location in the distribution of Indo-European languages ​​and early separation, but does not indicate their more close to a common ancestor position on the linguistic tree. ^[four]

I. Adiego points out that it is difficult to judge the “archaic nature ” of various phenomena of the Anatolian languages ​​in comparison with other Indo-European languages ​​because they developed in the preliterate period; however, the general array of phenomena receives a more logical explanation within the framework of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, while in the framework of other hypotheses some of the phenomena remain without explanation ^[5] .

A recent mathematical calculation of the divergence of the branches of the Indo-European languages, which takes into account the distribution of Proto-Indo-European verbs (SLR-D) ^[6] , rejects the earlier separation of the Anatolian languages ​​as a whole and shows that the separation from the genealogical tree of the Anatolian (and Tocharic) languages ​​is later - together with Greek, Albanian and Armenian languages, in the framework of a common branch with the Indo-Iranian, and at the same time separately from such sub-branches as the Baltic-Slavic, Italian-Celtic and Germanic languages, which belonged to the other branch, ^[7] thus supporting the hypothesis of supporters distributing IE languages in parallel with the spread of bronze metallurgy. ^[eight]

Therefore, the decisive question is whether the Anatolian branch separated before the start of the Bronze Age , or even the Eneolithic . In the framework of the common Indo-European dictionary, the realities of the Bronze Age are usually reconstructed, but it is not clear whether this is always true for the inherited vocabulary in the Anatolian languages. The early Bronze Age begins in Anatolia, at least from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. In the Caucasus, the beginning of the Bronze Age dates from about 3300 BC. It is assumed that proto-Anatolians were involved in the early development of bronze metallurgy. In any case, although the fact that the Anatolian languages ​​have a common metallurgical terminology with other IE languages ​​could be against the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, the exclusion of this evidence does not automatically confirm the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, since the separation of Anatolian languages ​​supposed by its supporters is about 4000 BC e., undoubtedly preceded the Bronze Age.

To prove this theory, it will be necessary to identify formal-functional constructions that can be sequentially reconstructed in both branches, but at the same time relate to the formal-functional construction, which (a) differs from both, or (b) indicates a very early innovation, a common for the group.

• Anatolian hypothesis
• Alvin Klukhorst
• The Neolithic Creolization Hypothesis
• Ancestral home
• Ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans
• Kurgan hypothesis
• Theory of Exodus from India
• Arctic hypothesis
• Indo-Ural hypothesis
• Praindo-Europeans
• Pre-Indo-European substrate
• Praindo-Europeans
• Indo-Europeans
• Indo-Ural hypothesis # See also
• Pra-Indo-European language
• Indo-European languages
• Indo-Ural hypothesis
• Theory of Exodus from India
• Indo-European languages
• Pre-Indo-European substrate
• Ancestral homeland # Ancestral homeland of the Indo-European language family
• Anatolian hypothesis
• Arctic hypothesis
• Balkan hypothesis
• Kurgan hypothesis
• Theory of Paleolithic Continuity

• Schmidt, Karl Horst (1992). Contributions from New Data to the Reconstruction of the Proto-Language . In: Edgar Polomé and Werner Winter, eds. Reconstructing Languages ​​and Cultures . Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 35-62.
• Sturtevant, Edgar H. (1931). Hittite glossary: ​​words of known or conjectured meaning, with Sumerian ideograms and Accadian words common in Hittite texts . Language , Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 3-82., Language Monograph No. 9.
• Sturtevant, Edgar H. (1932). "The Development of the Stops in Hittite." Journal of the American Oriental Society (Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 52, No. 1) 52 (1): 1–12.
• Sturtevant, Edgar HA (1933, 1951). Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language . Rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951. First edition: 1933.
• Sturtevant, Edgar HA (1942). The Indo-Hittite laryngeals . Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America.
• Sturtevant, Edgar H. (1940). "Evidence for voicing in Hittite g." Language (Language, Vol. 16, No. 2) 16 (2): 81–87.
• Sturtevant, Edgar HA, & George Bechtel (1935). A Hittite Chrestomathy . Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America.
• Alwin Kloekhorst . The Hittite verbal system and the Indo-Hittite hypothesis // Reconstructing Early Indo-European Language and Culture. University of Copenhagen, 13 September 2017.

• Melchert, H. Craig The Position of Anatolian (Neopr.) (2012).