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Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

William M. Austin
William M. Austin*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Abstract

[Armenian, like Hittite, Luwian, and Lycian, retains the third laryngeal initially, and has no inherited long vowels, no palatal-velar distinction, and no feminine gender. These and other archaisms lead to the conclusion that Armenian is an Anatolian language and can be compared to more advantage with Lycian and Hittite than with the IE languages proper.]

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 18 , Issue 1-Part1: April-June , March 1942 , pp. 22 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © 1942 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 This is not the place to argue for the Indo-Hittite hypothesis. Those who reject it may perfectly well read IE for IH in this paper. This article represents some of the research I did as Sterling Fellow at Yale University in 1940–1.

2 S. P. Jensen, Hittiter und Armenier, Strassburg, 1898.

3 In view of the fact that the double writing in Hittite indicates a voiceless stop t, we might expect t ' in Armenian. But t does survive in such inheritances as tar 'distant' (: Lat. trans) and p'etur ‘feather’.

4 Some 400 known words; cf. H. Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik, Leipzig, 1897.

5 Cf. Sturtevant, A Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language 236–38; Bechtel, Hittite verbs in -sk-, Ann Arbor, 1936.

6 Bechtel 63.

7 Ezekiel 1.24; cf. Meillet, Armenisches Elementarbuch 107 (Heidelberg, 1913).

8 Cf. Meriggi in Festschrift für Hermann Hirt (Germanen und Indogermanen) 2.257–82 (Heidelberg, 1936).

9 Meriggi 276.