Is Armenian an Anatolian Language?

Abstract

Armenian, owing to the large proportion of loan words (chiefly Iranian) in its vocabulary and to certain obscurities in the historical development of its phonology, has never held an important position in Indo-European comparative grammar. In the last century it was elevated from the status of a Persian dialect and was conventionally classed with the IE satam dialects, but on the basis of surprisingly scanty evidence. It is said to be one of the few branches of the parent stock to retain the original distinction between 6 and 6. Other distinguishing features of the language, such as its lack of distinctive vowel quantity and of the feminine gender, are usually thought to be innovations. It would not be too surprising, then, if a language so weakly characterized and so sadly neglected should turn out to have been incorrectly classified. I beg my readers to bear this in mind while examining the evidence submitted below.