In this (hopefully) thought-provoking video, I explore the intriguing, and for sure controversial, possibility of Tocharian and Anatolian forming a distinct branch on the Indo-European language🌳. While this idea is FAR, FAR from being set in stone, I couldn't help but notice some compelling lexical and phonological similarities between these two ancient language groups during a recent cold and sore throat that left me stuck in bed for a few days, allowing me to get deeply stuck into reading about Tocharian. 🤒📚
I also stumbled upon a couple of articles that support the idea of a deeper connection between Tocharian and Anatolian. The first one, "Hittite and Tocharian" by Petersen (1933), is a true gem of linguistic scholarship, standing the test of time over its 90 years of existence. Petersen's work provides a comprehensive analysis of the arguments supporting a potential 'dialectical unity' of Anatolian and Tocharian. Interestingly, it was in this text that I encountered the earliest mention of the possible lengthening of stops in Anatolian, a concept that has since become a popular research area, explored by scholars like Alwin Kloekhorst in contemporary times. This work has also been cited by Melchert, Adams, and Jasanoff, although it's worth noting that none of them seem to have paid much attention to the core idea of the text.
The second text that caught my eye was "West-Indo-European Affinities of Anatolian" by Jaan Puhvel (1994). Puhvel's meticulous examination delves into the relationship between Anatolian and the West-Indo-European group, of which he considers Tocharian to be a part.
Additionally, I came across a more recent work by Kassian, Zhivlov, Starostin, and others (2021), which presents an extensive reconstruction of Indo-European phylogeny based on substantial wordlists. In this article, Kassian explores a potentially alternative relationship between Tocharian and Hittite. 📝🧐
In my video, I also discuss recent research by Kloekhorst on the Anatolian stop system and Heggarty's (controversial) article. While the authors may not explicitly state a joint Tocharian and Anatolian clade, the evidence, especially in Kloekhorst's work, seems to hint at a potential reconstruction of the Anatolian stop system that aligns neatly (albeit, not perfectly) with Tocharian.
I want to emphasize that my primary position still leans toward Tocharian and Anatolian forming separate branches on the Indo-European language tree, perhaps breaking off together in close temporal proximity. However, it's always worth revisiting ideas like those presented by Petersen and Puhvel in light of modern discoveries and linguistic research to see if there are any valuable insights to be gained.
Please share your views and opinions in the comment section. I would love to read your ideas.
Particularily concerning what type of evidence we need to justify a joint branch and whether the shared characteristics of Anatolian and Tocharian might shed new light on how PIE is reconstructed.
What do you think is the closest relative to Tocharian? 💬🤝
I apologize for my croaky voice during the video (I’m feeling better now and my voice will be normal for the next video!), and if the video jumps around a bit, it’s because I actually recorded about 75 minutes of me talking into the camera! I cut it down to something a lot more manageable! I also left out some of the concepts discussed in Peterson's article as, upon review, I felt I did a bad job of representing the ideas from the text. 🙏🎥
Very Selected Reading List 📜 (In order of importance according to me) 📜
⭐ Petersen, W. (1933). Hittite and Tocharian. Language.
⭐ Puhvel, Jaan. (1994). West-Indo-European affinities of Anatolian. Früh-, Mittel-, Spätindogermanisch.
⭐ Kassian, A., et al. (2021). Rapid radiation of the inner Indo-European languages: an advanced approach to Indo-European lexicostatistics.
Kloekhorst, A. (2016). The Anatolian stop system and the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.
Paul Heggarty et al. (2023) ,Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages.
Peyrot, M. (2019). The deviant typological profile of the Tocharian branch of Indo-European may be due to Uralic substrate influence. Indo-European Linguistics.
⭐ Jäntti, O. The Position of Anatolian in Indo-European: An Overview. Leiden University, MA Comparative Indo-European Linguistics
Adams, D. Q. (1984). The Position of Tocharian among the Other Indo-European Languages. Journal of the American Oriental Society.
Peyrot, M. (2018). Interrogative stems in Hittite and Tocharian. Indogermanische Forschungen.
Ringe, D., Warnow, T. and Taylor, A. (2002), Indo-European and Computational Cladistics.
Sturtevant, E. H. (1929). The Relationship of Hittite to Indo-European.
Jasanoff, Jay H. (2003). Hittite and the Indo-European verb.
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25 сен 2024