Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

[Armanen]

Re: Are Armenians white????

I know that Lithuanian has this stereotype of arcane features, but what exactly does one mean when they try to relate it to similarities found in Sanskrit (and I'd imagine Avestan, are you sure it's similar to Old Persian?). Does it mean that Lithuanian and Indo-Iranian form a subgroup? That mysteriously, Sanskrit speakers found their way to Lithuania and dropped off their fancy ancient words there?

What's important to highlight here is that Sanskrit and Avestan are among the early birds of the attested Indo-European languages. They, along with Luwian, Hittite and Mycenean Greek, are the earliest peeks (2nd millenium BCE) one could get of Indo-European as a language family.

So again, when one refers to the "arcane"-ness of Lithuanian, what exactly do they mean? They mean precisely that it preserves the phonology of Indo-European at the state it was at when Sanskrit was first recorded into the oral traditions of the Rig Veda. They don't mean it has ties to Sanskrit speakers. This fact is surprising however, because Lithuanian is first attested in the 16th century, and yet it's being compared to Sanskrit from the 2nd millenium BCE in terms of how its words sound. It means that whereas the other branches underwent many innovations in their phonology and sound systems, Lithuanian held onto many phonological features of an earlier state of Indo-European not held by its cousins, and thus looks "old", "arcane". Does that mean its related to the Indo-Iranian language family? No. The consensus is that it's in the Balto-Slavic branch, and the linguists who were responsible for this classification are the very same ones who remarked at how its sound system is strikingly familiar to that of Sanskrit.

An example of this impression can be seen from this nice quote:

"Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant."
- Antoine Meillet*

*One of the major linguists from France at the beginning of the 20th century. He was also one of the most important linguists who worked on Armenian as an Indo-European language.




It's not unreasonable to associate the spread of Indo-European language with the horse, but when the classification of Indo-European branches was formulated, with Balto-Slavic being distinct from Indo-Iranian, it was done for a reason. It means that Indo-European split into distinct groups that no longer innovated together, and that these groups only looked alike to the extent that they did not lose the features of their ancestor. The case with Lithuanian words resembling Sanskrit is a great example of this.



Upon my asking him of what he thought of J.P. Mallory and his ideas about where to place the Indo-European homeland, one of my professors one told me something like this: "He's an archaeologist. He works with physical artifacts, and tries to link these to language, which was not written down by the proto-Indo-Europeans." Basically, he told me, how could you positively link bones, genes, kurgans and horses to language, which leaves no trace from ancient times unless it's written down at some point? He believes that it's impossible to positively identify the Indo-European homeland on that basis, and I agree with his argument.

Corrupt western historians and their Armenian lackeys in the west would have us believe that Armenians are not native to the Caucasus/Eastern Asia Minor. Don't buy into their bs.

[jgk3]

Re: Are Armenians white????

The Lithuanians and other Balto-Slavic peoples have ties to ancient nomadic Indo-Iranic peoples inhabiting the Urals. Tocharian dates back to the 2nd millenium BCE and it branched and migrated eastwards along the silk road. At much the same time that the Indo-European Anatolian/Balkan cultures emerged.

The properties of language families are not subject to culture or genetics between different "peoples".

If Lithuanians (or whatever their ancestors liked to call themselves) had "ties" to ancient Indo-Iranian speakers, it can be demonstrated that this has no relevance to why their words are reminiscent of Sanskrit.

It's my understanding that even though Armenian has a lot of borrowings from other languages, that it has Anatolian-Phrygian/Balkan associations.

Phrygian is poorly attested, the only bits we get from their language are from kurgan burials with brief inscriptions about the life of such and such king. For someone to claim it unquestionably close to Greek, without defining how (in what ways) it is close to Greek, or how much closer it is to Greek compared to other branches, really doesn't mean... anything.

In short, Phrygian (due to the comparatively minute number and variety of available sentences to analyze it by) doesn't lend itself very well to revealing "associations" with other language families. But despite this, there is at least one important morphological feature in Phrygian that has been identified as common innovation in Greek, Armenian and Indo-Iranian: the e-augment, which I already described in a prior post. It's also been said that certain Phrygian sound changes from Indo-European follow similar patterns to proto-Armenian:

It has long been claimed that Phrygian exhibits a Lautverschiebung of stop consonants, similar to Grimm's Law in Germanic and, more to the point, sound laws found in Proto-Armenian,[4] I.e. voicing of PIE aspirates, devoicing of PIE voiced stops and aspiration of voiceless stops. This hypothesis has been rejected by Lejeune (1979) and Brixhe (1984).[5]

The hypothesis had been considered defunct throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but has been revived in the 2000s, with Woodhouse (2006) and Lubotsky (2004) arguing for evidence for at least partial shift of obstruent series, i.e. voicing of PIE aspirates (*bh > b) and devoicing of PIE voiced stops (*d > t).[6]

The affricates ts and dz developed from velars before front vowels.

Should be interesting enough to look into more closely.

But let's say that after lots of research, people finally decided to agree that Armenian and Phrygian formed a subgroup, or instead, that Phrygian and Greek formed a subgroup, this would be a linguistic statement, not a cultural or genetic one. Because Phrygian, like Armenian, as branches of Indo-European, are not ethnic groups*. Instead, they are branches of Indo-European, whose dialects are spoken by people not necessarily of a genetically or culturally traceable lineage that would lead to the proto-Indo-Europeans.

*If you want to talk about Armenian as an ethnic group, that's another story, but it would not relate to language families and associations between them.

[retro]

Re: Are Armenians white????

Upon my asking him of what he thought of J.P. Mallory and his ideas about where to place the Indo-European homeland, one of my professors one told me something like this: "He's an archaeologist. He works with physical artifacts, and tries to link these to language, which was not written down by the proto-Indo-Europeans." Basically, he told me, how could you positively link bones, genes, kurgans and horses to language, which leaves no trace from ancient times unless it's written down at some point? He believes that it's impossible to positively identify the Indo-European homeland on that basis, and I agree with his argument.

The Lithuanians and other Balto-Slavic peoples have ties to ancient nomadic Indo-Iranic peoples inhabiting the Urals. Tocharian dates back to the 2nd millenium BCE and it branched and migrated eastwards along the silk road. At much the same time that the Indo-European Anatolian/Balkan cultures emerged.

It's my understanding that even though Armenian has a lot of borrowings from other languages, that it has Anatolian-Phrygian/Balkan associations.

Brixhe believes that "unquestionably, however, Phrygian is most closely linked with Greek." A conventional date of c. 1180 BC is often used, at the very end of the Hittite empire. It is certain that Phrygia was constituted on Hittite land, and yet not at the very center of Hittite power in the big bend of the Halys River, where Ankara now is.

From tribal and village beginnings, the state of Phrygia arose in the 8th century BC with its capital at Gordium. During this period, the Phrygians extended eastward and encroached upon the kingdom of Urartu, the descendants of the Hurrians, a former rival of the Hittites. It is believed that the Armenian people were the result of the fusion of these eastward Phrygian migrators with the indigenous Urartians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygia

[jgk3]

Re: Are Armenians white????

Whilst Indo-Iranian, Albanian, Greek, Armenian and Phrygian are all thought to have ties to each other.

Lithuanian is another intresting Indo-European language, that is noted for it's arcane characteristic and it's my understanding that their are similarities between Lithuanian and Sanskrit/Old Persian.

I know that Lithuanian has this stereotype of arcane features, but what exactly does one mean when they try to relate it to similarities found in Sanskrit (and I'd imagine Avestan, are you sure it's similar to Old Persian?). Does it mean that Lithuanian and Indo-Iranian form a subgroup? That mysteriously, Sanskrit speakers found their way to Lithuania and dropped off their fancy ancient words there?

What's important to highlight here is that Sanskrit and Avestan are among the early birds of the attested Indo-European languages. They, along with Luwian, Hittite and Mycenean Greek, are the earliest peeks (2nd millenium BCE) one could get of Indo-European as a language family.

So again, when one refers to the "arcane"-ness of Lithuanian, what exactly do they mean? They mean precisely that it preserves the phonology of Indo-European at the state it was at when Sanskrit was first recorded into the oral traditions of the Rig Veda. They don't mean it has ties to Sanskrit speakers. This fact is surprising however, because Lithuanian is first attested in the 16th century, and yet it's being compared to Sanskrit from the 2nd millenium BCE in terms of how its words sound. It means that whereas the other branches underwent many innovations in their phonology and sound systems, Lithuanian held onto many phonological features of an earlier state of Indo-European not held by its cousins, and thus looks "old", "arcane". Does that mean its related to the Indo-Iranian language family? No. The consensus is that it's in the Balto-Slavic branch, and the linguists who were responsible for this classification are the very same ones who remarked at how its sound system is strikingly familiar to that of Sanskrit.

An example of this impression can be seen from this nice quote:

"Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant."
- Antoine Meillet*

*One of the major linguists from France at the beginning of the 20th century. He was also one of the most important linguists who worked on Armenian as an Indo-European language.

Nomadic Indo-Iranic peoples where the first to domesticated the horse. Which is how they where able to traverse vast distances and expanded, so rapidly throughout Eurasia. So it's not unreasonable to associate these peoples with the spread of Indo-European languages.

It's not unreasonable to associate the spread of Indo-European language with the horse, but when the classification of Indo-European branches was formulated, with Balto-Slavic being distinct from Indo-Iranian, it was done for a reason. It means that Indo-European split into distinct groups that no longer innovated together, and that these groups only looked alike to the extent that they did not lose the features of their ancestor. The case with Lithuanian words resembling Sanskrit is a great example of this.

Blatic Indo-European speakers are originally from further south and many people place Indo-European's Urheimat in the region, north of the Black Sea.

The Tocharians are intresting Eastern Indo-European peoples. Tocharian (Tarim Basin) are R1a Y-DNA, accompanied by both European and Asian mtDNA lineages.

Upon my asking him of what he thought of J.P. Mallory and his ideas about where to place the Indo-European homeland, one of my professors one told me something like this: "He's an archaeologist. He works with physical artifacts, and tries to link these to language, which was not written down by the proto-Indo-Europeans." Basically, he told me, how could you positively link bones, genes, kurgans and horses to language, which leaves no trace from ancient times unless it's written down at some point? He believes that it's impossible to positively identify the Indo-European homeland on that basis, and I agree with his argument.

[retro]

Re: Are Armenians white????

This e-augment phenomenon, along with some other phonological developments, are used to convincingly argue that Indo-Iranian, Greek, Armenian and Phrygian comes from the dialects which were the last to leave the Proto-Indo-European homeland. But in ascribing sub-group status to these dialects, one must question whether or not they received these innovations due to genetic inheritance from a common ancestor. It appears more likely that this innovation sprang from one of the dialects, gained a lot of popularity in it and interfered with the internal grammatical knowledge of speakers of proto-Armenians, proto-Greeks, proto-Indo-Iranians, etc... all still living in the same homeland territory, but having already diversified dialectally into the distinct ancestors of those Indo-European groups. If the latter case is so, then the e-augment cannot conclusively argue that these languages form a sub-group.

Whilst Indo-Iranian, Albanian, Greek, Armenian and Phrygian are all thought to have ties to each other.

Lithuanian is another intresting Indo-European language, that is noted for it's arcane characteristic and it's my understanding that their are similarities between Lithuanian and Sanskrit/Old Persian.

Nomadic Indo-Iranic peoples where the first to domesticated the horse. Which is how they where able to traverse vast distances and expanded, so rapidly throughout Eurasia. So it's not unreasonable to associate these peoples with the spread of Indo-European languages.

Blatic Indo-European speakers are originally from further south and many people place Indo-European's Urheimat in the region, north of the Black Sea.

The Tocharians are intresting Eastern Indo-European peoples. Tocharian (Tarim Basin) are R1a Y-DNA, accompanied by both European and Asian mtDNA lineages.

Secrets of the Silk Road!

[jgk3]

Re: Are Armenians white????

I think criticism is great. I never said you shouldn't. Just pointed out the fact that since you criticize others for their lack of support of the content they post, you should make sure not to do the same (in your future posts).

Fair enough, but I won't make any promises. Feel free to criticize me again though, it usually motivates me to check my sources again to re-formulate my arguments.

[levon]

Re: Are Armenians white????

This is a forum, not an academic circle. You can't expect people to back up everything they ever say, and I am making it clear that I don't expect others to be perfect. That said, I reserve the right to criticize others, as you have.

I think criticism is great. I never said you shouldn't. Just pointed out the fact that since you criticize others for their lack of support of the content they post, you should make sure not to do the same (in your future posts).

[jgk3]

Re: Are Armenians white????

You can't expect others not to sh!t on the table then reserve the right to do it yourself. Just making sure next time you post your usual cr@p, back it up upon the post, not after-wards.

This is a forum, not an academic circle. You can't expect people to back up everything they ever say, and I am making it clear that I don't expect others to be perfect. That said, I reserve the right to criticize others, as you have.

I'm also pointing out that we criticize people only when we feel ennervated by their comments, but otherwise don't care one way or another how people formulate their posts despite the fact that the vast majority of them aren't backed up in a manner that defies all possible criticism.

[levon]

Re: Are Armenians white????

Does that strip me of the right to engage in criticism? For that enterprise is an easy one, as you might have noticed when challenging other peoples' statements with unrelenting frequency. Posting undeniable facts to critics is a much more tedious enterprise of which not many of us here seem intent on doing when we make our statements. Instead, we mostly criticize one another wherever we feel it is necessary.

You can't expect others not to sh!t on the table then reserve the right to do it yourself. Just making sure next time you post your usual cr@p, back it up upon the post, not after-wards.

[jgk3]

Re: Are Armenians white????

I think the English cognate of Armenian kar (rock) is "hard", both coming from Indo-European "Kar" http://www.myetymology.com/proto-ind...pean/kar-.html
And Carraig is built from the Indo-European root "Kar": http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaeilge/don.../focal234.html

Rock/Rocca is found earliest from Latin, I'm not sure if there's a root for it in Indo-European. It's presence as a loanword from Latin to Old French to English might've played a role in displacing the Old English form "heard" (Modern English: hard) from indicating "rock", and reanalyzing this word's meaning as one of a rock's characteristics, it's "hardness".

A little research, but good to know