Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

[KanadaHye]

Re: Are Armenians white????

Language is more like a bush than a branch though.... it's pretty damn hard to trace its roots. There is a traditional Irish name Carraig which refers to "rocky headland" in Gaelic. As most people here know, Kar means rock in Armenian. In English... car, cart, carriage all refer to transportation. While Rock, Roche means stone in English and French.... and Rocca in Italian.

This leads me to believe that the Flintstones was a cartoon based on true history since the first form of transportation was made out of stone.

[jgk3]

Re: Are Armenians white????

Linguistics is in your field of study jg, why don't you provide us with what you have concluded, or at least have come across?

Armenian, Greek, Phrygian and Indo-Iranian can be seen to share common innovations not shared by the other branches, such as the e-augment (Indo-European e- prefix) for aorist construction (past perfective*, **), which we see in Armenian for constructions like yega, yegha (I came, I became).

*perfective is a verbal aspect used to invoke a single event, able to stand on its own independent of references of time (past, present, future) or implication of continued relevance. For example, in English, the form "I ate" can be seen as perfective because it simply describes the event that one has eaten. This form could appear regardless of whether the event takes place in the past or present: "I ate yesterday", 'I ate today". There is another form of the verb to eat, which does not have this liberty: "I've eaten". If you say I have eaten, it directly attaches relevance to your present state. You would say this if one has asked you if you're hungry, to which you might reply, "No, I've eaten already", or if you're asked if you ate today, "Yes, I've eaten". If someone asked if you ate yesterday, replying "I've eaten yesterday" sounds strange, since eaten implies a relevance to your state here and now. It is better to reply using the English perfective aspect felt in "I ate", because it's simply stating a fact that you ate, with no implications on your present state.

**Past perfective (often known as the aorist merely limits the time frame of the perfective aspect to the past.

This fact alone however is not enough to establish a subgroup, but rather that those Indo-European languages might've experienced a common trend which established itself within a certain geographical territory, not affecting its cousin languages spoken outside of its boundaries. 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. To illustrate a parallel example of this interference, look at Western Armenian usage of the particle "gor" for present (progressive) tense. This came from Turkic, not Indo-European, but interfered (through bilingualism and reanalysis of one known language according to patterns of the other) with the grammatical structure spoken by Armenians up until that point. It would be stupid to conclude on this basis that "gor" is the key to subgrouping Turkish and Western Armenian together. It is the same case with why using the e-augment case to sub-group all the language families it is present in, would be jumping the gun.

There is however, a hypothesis that claims sub-group status between Armenian and Greek via many grammatical parallelisms features between the two, both morphologically and phonologically, but there is no consensus yet on the matter. It is still at the level of debate. I look forward to learning more about the arguments of both sides. It would also help me greatly to understand the debate if I knew the respective ancient languages and think critically about each of them. Here's a very brief history of the debate without going into detail about the arguments it has seen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeco-Armenian

[Catharsis]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

I personally subscribe to Colin Renfrew's theory about IE homeland in Anatolia and Armenian Highland. It is today one of the most accepted theories, although, both the Ukrainian kurgans and the Balkans are also in circulation.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6965/images/nature02029-f1.2.jpg

a, Majority-rule consensus tree based on the MCMC sample of 1,000 trees. The main language groupings are colour coded. Branch lengths are proportional to the inferred maximum-likelihood estimates of evolutionary change per cognate. Values above each branch (in black) express the bayesian posterior probabilities as a percentage. Values in red show the inferred ages of nodes in years BP. *Italic also includes the French/Iberian subgroup. Panels b–e show the distribution of divergence-time estimates at the root of the Indo-European phylogeny for: b, initial assumption set using all cognate information and most stringent constraints (Anatolian, Tocharian, (Greek, Armenian, Albanian, (Iranian, Indic), (Slavic, Baltic), ((North Germanic, West Germanic), Italic, Celtic))); c, conservative cognate coding with doubtful cognates excluded; d, all cognate sets with minimum topological constraints (Anatolian, Tocharian, (Greek, Armenian, Albanian, (Iranian, Indic), (Slavic, Baltic), (North Germanic, West Germanic), Italic, Celtic)); e, missing data coding with minimum topological constraints and all cognate sets. Shaded bars represent the implied age ranges under the two competing theories of Indo-European origin: blue, Kurgan hypothesis; green, Anatolian farming hypothesis. The relationship between the main language groups in the consensus tree for each analysis is also shown, along with posterior probability values.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6965/fig_tab/nature02029_F1.html

[jgk3]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

People do not have a single point of origin. The Indo-Europeans where semi-nomadic and Caucasus/Asia Minor are very closely associated with Indo-European culture. Indeed many anthropologists actually go far as to maintain that the Indo-Europeans originated from the region.

Before we begin, I would like to stress that "Indo-European" is a strictly linguistic term, referring to a family of languages and not a race/tribe/civilization. We admit that proto-Indo-European must've been spoken within a much more condensed geographic range compared to where its daughter languages ended up (in such far flung corners of the world as Ireland and Western China, and which after the colonial era, would come to dominate the entire world with the likes of English, French, Spanish, etc...). In short, to speak of an "Indo-European" race just doesn't work. What we can engage in is cultural reconstruction, but this is heavily based on cultural artifacts retained in the daughter languages, and matching them up with archaeological findings whenever possible in order to give more weight to the reconstruction.

But let me ask you, what are the traits of this "common culture" as you see it? And which anthropologists are you thinking of when you say Asia Minor/Caucasus culture is very similar to Indo-European culture? I'd like to know, so I can start reading anything I've missed.

Just a warning though, several anthropologists think they're onto the Indo-Europeans after digging up kurgan burials, some pottery, designs engraved on rocks, etc... In short, they dig up the material culture of pre-historic societies and based on their finders, and try to infer to us what language they spoke, without even knowing the first thing about linguistics.

[retro]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

And what sources are your views based on when you say that the Caucasus and Asia Minor are important Indo-European homelands? How do you fit the PIE homeland to encompass both the Caucasus/Asia Minor area and also Central Asia?

People do not have a single point of origin. The Indo-Europeans where semi-nomadic and Caucasus/Asia Minor are very closely associated with Indo-European culture. Indeed many anthropologists actually go far as to maintain that the Indo-Europeans originated from the region.

[jgk3]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

Whilst the Caucasus and Asia Minor are obviously important Indo-European homelands. The Indo-Europeans like the Turkic/Mongol peoples are originally from Central Asia and these nomadic Eurasian Steppe cultures are very ancient indeed.

Hurro-Urartian culture emerged far later. Whilst Armenia has been Eastern Indo-Europeanise. Hurrian has strong Eastern Indo-European (Northern Caucasian/Iranic) cultural/linguistic links and Armenia is in a sence really a distinctive bridge between Semitic and Indo-European regions.

And what sources are your views based on when you say that the Caucasus and Asia Minor are important Indo-European homelands? How do you fit the PIE homeland to encompass both the Caucasus/Asia Minor area and also Central Asia?

[Joseph]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

Whilst the Caucasus and Asia Minor are obviously important Indo-European homelands. The Indo-Europeans like the Turkic/Mongol peoples are originally from Central Asia and these nomadic Eurasian Steppe cultures are very ancient indeed.

Hurro-Urartian culture emerged far later. Whilst Armenia has been Eastern Indo-Europeanise. Hurrian has strong Eastern Indo-European (Northern Caucasian/Iranic) cultural/linguistic links and Armenia is in a sence really a distinctive bridge between Semitic and Indo-European regions.

I watched and interesting Discovery Channel show. Humans first emerged in East Africa and as the Ice Age gave way, some made there way all the way east to Asia while some migrated west through Northern Africa into what is now Southern Europe. Yes, we are all related.

[retro]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

What is not bogus is when we try to explain our Hurro-Urartian past to a world that doesn't believe we are heirs to much of their culture, but one must take care not to converge Hurro-Urartians with Indo-Europeans proper.

Whilst the Caucasus and Asia Minor are obviously important Indo-European homelands. The Indo-Europeans like the Turkic/Mongol peoples are originally from Central Asia and these nomadic Eurasian Steppe cultures are very ancient indeed.

Hurro-Urartian culture emerged far later. Whilst Armenia has been Eastern Indo-Europeanise. Hurrian has strong Eastern Indo-European (Northern Caucasian/Iranic) cultural/linguistic links and Armenia is in a sence really a distinctive bridge between Semitic and Indo-European regions.

[retro]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

Also, in early medieval Armenian, the word Mar (i.e Medes) referred to Kurds. Real Medes/Medeans were long extinct by then. Maybe that is where the Kurds got their claim to be the descendants of the Medeans.

The Kurds have merely acculturated a Iranic language. They are actually closely related to the xxxs and are a Semitic people (originally descendant from Mesopotamian).

[jgk3]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

Also, in early medieval Armenian, the word Mar (i.e Medes) referred to Kurds. Real Medes/Medeans were long extinct by then. Maybe that is where the Kurds got their claim to be the descendants of the Medeans.

Maybe so, it's something worth looking into.