Talk:Indo-Hittite

Scientific evidence

The article regrettably lacks any arguments or evidence regarding the "Indo-Hittite Hypothesis", however contains a lot of science fiction (see e.g. my entry under Bronze Age below).HJJHolm (talk) 16:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Dbachmann, is there any reason why you move this article back ? I thought the standard for wikipedia was to name articles "XXX language" or "XXX languages". Why should this article be an exception ? bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 06:42, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This article isn't exactly about a language or group of languages, it's really about a hypothesis within historical lniguistics. Naming it Indo-Hittite languages would imply that the content of the article should duplicate Indo-European languages, which of course it doesn't. But it might make sense to rename this Indo-Hittite hypothesis. --Angr/_comhrá 23:29, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Of course, you do realize that even the Indo-European language group is a hypothesis, right ? They have different degrees of acceptance in the scientific world, but since none was directly attested, they are only hypotheses. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 13:56, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Is Proto-Indo-European a hypothesis or a theory? Probably a hypothesis, because theories require more evidence. Decius 14:30, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

The hypothesis is : Proto-Indo-Hittite language, later branching into Anatolian languages and Proto-Indo-European language (<from which all Indo-European languages except the Anatolian languages come in this scenario). Decius 14:41, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

So naming it Proto-Indo-Hittite language is a possibility to be voted on if many people are interested. Decius 15:11, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Some points:

1. Proto-Indo-European is definitely a theory, no longer a hypothesis, because of the overwhelming evidence that the Indo-European languages are descended from a common ancestor.
2. I think the point of this article should be to discuss the Indo-Hittite hypothesis (who proposed it, what the evidence in favor of it is, who argues against it, what the evidence against it is). Naming it Indo-Hittite hypothesis would make that intention clear. Renaming it Indo-Hittite language or Proto-Indo-Hittite language would imply that the article should focus on reconstructing the proto-language, and would largely duplicate Proto-Indo-European language.
3. It's customary to use "Proto-" in the names of proto-languages, if only to disambiguate between the name of the proto-language and a cover term for its daughter languages. Irish is a Celtic language, but it isn't the Proto-Celtic language.

--Angr/탉 07:03, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the theory that all the Indo-European languages (including the Anatolian languages) descend from a single Proto-Indo-European language should be a hypothesis, simply because there is not enough evidence that the Anatolian languages are included in the same way. Decius 04:09, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Though I agree with point 3, the Celtic/Proto-Celtic example is not parallel: in Indo-Hittite, 'Indo' stands for "Proto-Indo-European" and 'Hittite' stands for "Anatolian": so "Indo-Hittite language" could as well refer to the time when they were still one, before they split: so "Indo-Hittite language" could convey the same information as "Proto-Indo-Hittite language". That's true what you're saying though, and the convention is to use "Proto-" for the early language and to drop "proto-" when referring to the group. And I guess that such classification qualifies as a logical reason. Decius 04:41, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Though I'm not necessarily advocating it be titled Proto-Indo-Hittite language, such a title would not violate accuracy: see Proto-Pontic language for a parallel example. The Proto-Indo-Hittite language hypothesis is about on the same level as the hypothesis that the Proto-Indo-European language includes the Anatolian languages. Decius 04:54, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

So you think there's equally good evidence in both directions, so both should be called hypotheses rather than theories? I'd say there's an Indo-European theory, which includes two sub-hypotheses: (1) Anatolian broke off from the others only a little earlier (say a couple of centuries) than the other broke up (Anatolian-as-daughter hypothesis), (2) Anatolian broke off from the others a lot earlier (say a couple of millennia), allowing the rest to develop independently before breaking up (Indo-Hittite hypothesis). --Angr/_{tɔk tə me} 05:33, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

That's good to. The reason I'm interested in this debate is because I feel that the Proto-Indo-Hittite hypothesis may well be the correct one, because the other scenario is trying to squeeze (from a preconceived notion) everything into one late proto-language through a short window of time. Probably they underestimate how much time it takes for such languages to develop. Decius 05:58, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Bronze Age and Chalcolithic

<rant>An anon just added a paragraph about the question whether Anatolian broke off from the rest of PIE before the Bronze Age or even the Chalcolithic. The question that interests me is, why are people so intent to tie linguistics in with archaeology? The Indo-Hittite hypothesis is a linguistic question that can only be answered with linguistic data. If the archaeological evidence supports the hypothesis, that's great, but it doesn't strengthen the hypothesis. If the archaeological evidence does not support the hypothesis, that's okay too, because it doesn't weaken the hypothesis either. The same holds true for a lot of other questions in Indo-European linguistics. </rant> --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 20:27, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

There's been a bit of intermingling of historical linguistics with genetics and archaeology. Part of it is the link between language and culture. Interdisciplinary research into such matters can, on occasion, strengthen or weaken a hypothesis. AEuSoes1 06:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

There isn't only " a bit"...; BTW, the EBA (Early Bronze Age) starts in Anatolia at least with the beginning of the 3rd Millenium cal. BC., and NOT 3.300 in the Caucasus. See any modern archeological journal.HJJHolm (talk) 16:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The EBA begins ca. 3000 BC. It is futile to debate when precisely it should be taken to begin. Christopher Edens, Transcaucasia at the End of the Early Bronze Age, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1995):

Transcaucasia had considerable impact on eastern Anatolian during the Early Bronze Age when the Transcaucasian style of black and red burnished pottery, architecture, and other artifacts appeared in eastern Anatolia and then in Syro-Palestine. The movement of this culture, variously called Kura-Araxes, Early Transcaucasian, and Khirbet Kerak, began late in the fourth millennium B.C., and its effects persisted into the second half of the third millennium. The incursion of the Kura-Araxes culture in the EB I coincided with the collapse of the Uruk-related trading system that had encouraged the emergence of towns and political complexity in eastern Anatolia.

in other words, EBI begins gradually, from about 3300, with the Kura-Araxes culture, brings about the end of the Uruk period in the 31st century, and is in full swing by the turn of the millennium. dab (𒁳) 10:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Animate / inanimate distinction

"Notably, Anatolian doesn't have the IE gender system opposing masucline : feminine; instead we have a rudimentary noun class system based on an older animate : inanimate opposition reminiscent of noun class systems in non-Bantu Niger-Congo languages."

Well, the Russian language also has a animate/inanimate distinction in its nouns as well. No need to recur to Niger-Congo languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.241.221.24 (talk) 11:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Russian has a masculine-feminine-neuter distinction in the area that Hittite shows an animate-inanimate distinction, so it doesn't really compare. Dutch is closer since its has merged the masculine-feminine of its old masculine-feminine-neuter system leaving two cases kind of like an animate-inanimate system. It probably still isn't a good comparison though.Ekwos (talk) 01:32, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

good god the jargon

I'm sure undergraduate students of historical linguistics understand what "(SLR-D)" means, but we laymen don't.

Obviously one doesn't need to explain every technical term in detail on this particular page, but links to detailed information are necessary to make the article better than pseudo-academic wankery. 71.248.115.187 (talk) 02:47, 23 August 2009 (UTC) Actually, SLR-D was described as "a method" in the same sentence and supplied with a reference. This is all laymen have to know without compromising WP:VERIFY.