Proto-Armenian language

The earliest testimony of the Armenian language dates to the 5th century AD (the Bible translation of Mesrob Mashtots). The earlier history of the language is unclear and the subject of much speculation.It is clear that Armenian is an Indo-European language, but its development is opaque. In any case, Armenian has many layers of loanwords and shows traces of long language contact with Hurro-Urartian,Fact|date=October 2007 Greek and Indo-Iranian.

In 1984, it was suggested by Thomas Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov that the Proto-Indo-European homeland is located in the Armenian Highland. ["The Early History of Indo-European Languages", Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov Scientific American, March 1990, P.110] A recent study (Gray & Atkinson) that applied the statistical tools used in timing genetic evolution to the lexical evolution of Indo-European languages strongly implied that the Indo-European homeland indeed appears to be in Asia Minor, and Armenian language (hence a well-defined group speaking it) split from it (along with Greek) at around 5300 BC, and split from Greek shortly thereafter (but the "split" from Greek was statistically less obvious).cite web | url= http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/psych/research/Evolution/Gray&Atkinson2003.pdf |title= "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin" Russell D. Gray and Quentin D. Atkinson, Nature 426, 435-439|accessdate=2007-02-27]

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.

cquote|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. [ “Armenians” in Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture or EIEC, edited by J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams, published in 1997 by Fitzroy Dearborn. ]

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

ee also

*Armenian hypothesis
*Classical Armenian
*Graeco-Armenian
*Glottalic theory