Graeco-Aryan
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Graeco-Aryan (or Graeco-Armeno-Aryan) refers to a hypothesis that the Greek language, the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages share a common history within the wider Indo-European family. Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into Proto-Greek (spoken in the Balkans) and Proto-Indo-Iranian (spoken in the Caspian steppe) by the mid 3rd millennium BC. The Phrygian language would also be included.[citation needed] Geographically the ProtoArmenian must be located in Armenian Highland which means between the Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian. The Phrygian language would also be located between the Armenian and Proto-Greek, which means the geographic region Asia Minor to the west of Armenia.
Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists.[1] Early and strong evidence was given by Euler's 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal flection.[2]
Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic, splitting into proto-Greek/Phrygian and "Armeno-Aryan" (ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian).[3][4]
In the context of the Kurgan hypothesis, Greco-Aryan is also known as "Late PIE" or "Late Indo-European" (LIE), suggesting that Greco-Aryan forms a dialect group which corresponds to the latest stage of linguistic unity in the Indo-European homeland in the early part of the 3rd millennium BC. By 2500 BC, Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian had separated, moving westward and eastward from the Pontic Steppe, respectively.[5]
If Graeco-Aryan is a valid group, Grassmann's Law may have a common origin in Greek and Sanskrit.
Graeco-Aryan is invoked in particular in studies of comparative mythology, e.g. by West (1999)[6] and Watkins (2001).[7]
[edit] References
- ^ A. Bammesberger in The Cambridge History of the English Language, 1992, ISBN 9780521264747, p. 32: the model "still remains the background of much creative work in Indo-European reconstruction" even though it is "by no means uniformly accepted by all scholars".
- ^ Indoiranisch-griechische Gemeinsamkeiten der Nominalbildung und deren indogermanische Grundlagen (= Aryan-Greek Communities in Nominal Morphology and their Indoeuropean Origins; in German) (282 p.), Innsbruck, 1979
- ^ Handbook of Formal Languages (1997) p. 6.
- ^ Indo-European tree with Armeno-Aryan, exclusion of Greek [1]
- ^ Martin Litchfield West, Indo-European poetry and myth (2007), p. 7.
- ^ Martin Litchfield West (1999), "The Invention of Homer". Classical Quarterly 49 (364).
- ^ Calvert Watkins (2001), How to Kill a Dragon, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0195144130.
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![[1]](http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cfford/Indoeuropean%20language%20family%20tree.jpg){kind=link}