Armenian hypothesis

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The Armenian hypothesis of the Proto-Indo-European Urheimat, based on the Glottalic theory suggests 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 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.

Many scholars place the Indo-European homeland in the Armenian Highlands and the plateau of Asia Minor to the southwest. Others believe that it was in Eastern Europe or southern Russia.

Notes

See also

• Indo-Hittite
• Graeco-Armenian
• Graeco-Aryan Competing hypotheses
• Anatolian hypothesis
• Broad Homeland hypothesis
• Kurgan hypothesis
• Out of India theory
• Paleolithic Continuity Theory

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.

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