Re: How does Armenian fit into the Indo-European family?


Darkstar wrote:
Hi, everyone! Long time no see.

How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/. Doesn't it
seem a little too far-fetched? Many Armenian words are so different
they don't even sound like IE.

Certainly, because they have been borrowed from Urartian or some other
little-known ancient language.

What's that stuff about comparing Armenian to the Hellenic group? Are
there any other theories concerning its origin?

Armenian is quite unmistakably an IE language, but its vocabulary has
been very much relexified and mixed up by subsequent influences. Even
the original IE stock is difficult to keep apart from the numerous
Iranic influences. I reckon the most important evidence of its IE
origins is grammatical and morphological structure, which is not
exotic at all from the IE point of view, although the vocabulary is
exotic.

.

Relevant Pages