Armenian is often grouped with Greek genetically (Graeco-Armenian), putting it into a Paleo-Balkans context together with Phrygian, another "Balkans" language which was spoken in Iron Age Anatolia.
The Proto-Armenian sound-laws are varied and eccentric (such as *dw- yielding erk-), and in many cases uncertain.
Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops are aspirated in Proto-Armenian, a circumstance that gave rise to the Glottalic theory, which postulates that this aspiration may have been sub-phonematic already in PIE. In certain contexts, these aspirated stops are further reduced to w, h or zero in Armenian (PIE *pots, Armenian otn, Greek pous "foot"; PIE treis, Armenian erek’, Greek treis "three").
The reconstruction of Proto-Armenian being very uncertain, there is no general consensus on the date range when it might have been alive.
The Armenians according to Diakonoff, are then an amalgam of the Hurrians (and Urartians), Luvians and the Mushki. After arriving in its historical territory, Proto-Armenian would appear to have undergone massive influence on part the languages it eventually replaced. Armenian phonology, for instance, appears to have been greatly affected by Urartian, which may suggest a long period of bilingualism.
Notes
References
- William M. Austin, Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?, Language, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1942), pp. 22-25
- Charles R. Barton, The Etymology of Armenian ert’am, Language 39, No. 4 (Oct., 1963), p. 620
- G. Bonfante, The Armenian Aorist, Journal of the American Oriental Society 62, No. 2 (Jun., 1942), pp. 102-105
- I. M. Diakonoff - First evidence of the Proto-Armenian language in Eastern Anatolia, Annual of Armenian linguistics 13, 51-54, Cleveland State University, 1992.
- I. M. Diakonoff, Hurro-Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 105, No. 4 (Oct., 1985), pp. 597-603
- John A. C. Greppin; I. M. Diakonoff, Some Effects of the Hurro-Urartian People and Their Languages upon the Earliest Armenians, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 111, No. 4 (Oct., 1991), pp. 720-730
- A. Meillet, Esquisse d'une grammaire comparée de l'arménien classique, Vienna (1936)
- Robert Minshall, 'Initial' Indo-European */y/ in Armenian, Language 31, No. 4 (Oct., 1955), pp. 499-503
- J. Alexander Kerns; Benjamin Schwartz, On the Placing of Armenian, Language 18, No. 3 (Jul., 1942), pp. 226-228
- K. H. Schmidt, The Indo-European Basis of Proto-Armenian : Principles of Reconstruction, Annual of Armenian linguistics, Cleveland State University, 11, 33-47, 1990.
- Werner Winter, Problems of Armenian Phonology I, Language 30, No. 2 (Apr., 1954), pp. 197-201
- Werner Winter, Problems of Armenian Phonology II, Language 31, No. 1 (Jan., 1955), pp. 4-8
- Werner Winter Problems of Armenian Phonology III, Language 38, No. 3, Part 1 (Jul., 1962), pp. 254-262
See also
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