Editing Armenian language (section)

===Early contacts===
[[File:Armenian mosaic and inscr at Jerusalem.jpg|thumb|[[Birds Mosaic (Jerusalem)|Armenian Birds Mosaic]] from [[Jerusalem]] with Armenian language and alphabet]]
[[File:2014 Prowincja Lorri, Hachpat, Klasztor Hachpat (06).jpg|thumb|Armenian language writing in [[Haghpat Monastery]]]]
W. M. Austin (1942) concluded<ref>{{cite journal|last=Austin |first=William M. |title=Is Armenian an Anatolian Language? |publisher=Linguistic Society of America |date=January–March 1942 |pages=22–25 |doi=10.2307/409074 |journal=Language |volume=18 |issue=1 |jstor=409074}}</ref> that there was early contact between Armenian and [[Anatolian languages]], based on what he considered common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine gender and the absence of inherited long vowels. Unlike shared innovations (or ''[[synapomorphy|synapomorphies]]''), the common retention of archaisms (or ''[[symplesiomorphy]]'') is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. There are words used in Armenian that are generally believed to have been borrowed from Anatolian languages, particularly from [[Luwian language|Luwian]], although some researchers have identified possible [[Hittite language|Hittite]] loanwords as well.<ref>{{citation |url=https://iling.spb.ru/confs/armenian_2015/slides/Hrach_Martirosyan_ALaC2015.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://iling.spb.ru/confs/armenian_2015/slides/Hrach_Martirosyan_ALaC2015.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Notes on Anatolian loanwords in Armenian |work=St. Petersburg, Institute for linguistic studies, Russian Academy of sciences |date=2015 |first=Hrach |last=Martirosyan |location=Russia}}</ref> One notable loanword from Anatolian is Armenian ''xalam'', "skull", cognate to Hittite ''ḫalanta'', "head".<ref>{{harvnb|Fortson|2004|p=337}}</ref>

In 1985, the Soviet linguist [[Igor M. Diakonoff]] noted the presence in [[Classical Armenian]] of what he calls a "Caucasian substratum" identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from the [[Kartvelian languages|Kartvelian]] and [[Northeast Caucasian languages]].<ref name=Diakonoff1985>{{cite journal |url=https://archive.org/stream/Hurro-urartianBorrowingsInOldArmenian#page/n1/mode/1up |title=Hurro-Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |date=1985 |pages=597–603 |first=I.&nbsp;M. |last=Diakonoff |author-link=Igor M. Diakonoff |location=New&nbsp;Haven |volume=105 |issue=4 |doi=10.2307/602722 |issn=0003-0279 |jstor=602722 |s2cid=163807245 |oclc=6015257905}}</ref> Noting that [[Hurro-Urartian languages|Hurro-Urartian-speaking]] peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium BC, Diakonoff identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such as ''[[wikt:աղախին|ałaxin]]'' "slave girl" ( ← Hurr. ''al(l)a(e)ḫḫenne''), ''cov'' "sea" ( ← Urart. ''ṣûǝ'' "(inland) sea"), ''[[wikt:ուղտ|ułt]]'' "camel" ( ← Hurr. ''uḷtu''), and ''[[wikt:խնձոր|xnjor]]'' "apple (tree)" ( ← Hurr. ''ḫinzuri''). Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] or [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings do not undergo [[sound change]]s characteristic of the development of Armenian from [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]], he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the [[Proto-Armenian language]] stage.

Contemporary linguists, such as [[Hrach Martirosyan]], have rejected many of the Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian origins for these words and instead suggest native Armenian etymologies, leaving the possibility that these words may have been loaned into Hurro-Urartian and Caucasian languages from Armenian, and not vice versa.<ref name="Hrach K. Martirosyan 2009">{{cite book |first=Hrach K. |last=Martirosyan |title=Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon |publisher=Brill |year=2009}}</ref> A notable example is ''[[wikt:արծիվ|arciv]]'', meaning "eagle", believed to have been the origin of Urartian ''Arṣibi'' and Northeast Caucasian  ''arzu''. This word is derived from Proto-Indo-European ''*h₂r̥ǵipyós'', with cognates in [[Sanskrit]] (ऋजिप्य, ''ṛjipyá''), [[Avestan]] (''ərəzifiia''), and Greek (αἰγίπιος, ''aigípios'').<ref>{{cite journal|last=Petrosyan|first=Armen| title=The Armenian Elements in the Language and Onomastics of Urartu| journal=Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies|publisher=Association for Near Eastern and Caucasian Studies, German University of Armenia|location=Yerevan|volume=V|issue=1|year=2010|page=134|url=https://www.academia.edu/2939663}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|first=Bert|last=Vaux|title=Recent Armenological Research of Indo-European Relevance|year=1998|url=https://www.academia.edu/2741055}}</ref> Hrach Martirosyan and Armen Petrosyan propose additional borrowed words of Armenian origin loaned into Urartian and vice versa, including grammatical words and parts of speech, such as Urartian ''eue'' ("and"), attested in the earliest Urartian texts and likely a loan from Armenian (compare to Armenian {{lang|hy|[[wikt:եւ|եւ]]}} {{transliteration|hy|yev}}, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ''[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₁epi|*h₁epi]]''). Other loans from Armenian into Urartian includes personal names, toponyms, and names of deities.<ref name="Hrach K. Martirosyan 2009"/><ref>{{cite conference|first=Hrach|last=Martirosyan|title=Origins and historical development of the Armenian language|year=2014|pages=7–8|url=https://ling.hse.ru/data/2014/09/01/1313574129/Hrach%20Martirosyan%20-%20Handout.pdf|conference=Лингвистическая школа НИУ ВШЭ|location=Moscow}}</ref><ref name="Martirosyan"/><ref>{{cite journal|first=Armen|last=Petrosyan|title=Towards the Origins of the Armenian People. The Problem of Identification of the Proto-Armenians: A Critical Review|journal=Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies|volume=16|year=2007|pages=33–34|url=https://www.academia.edu/3657764}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|editor-last1=Grekyan|editor-first1=Y|editor-last2=Badalyan|editor-first2=M.|editor-last3=Tiratsyan|editor-first3=N.|editor-last4=Petrosyan|editor-first4=A|
first=Yervand|last=Grekyan|title=Urartian State Mythology|encyclopedia=Biainili-Urartu: Gods, Temples, Cults|publisher=Yerevan Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography Press|location=Yerevan|year=2018|pages=44–45|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351107801|isbn=978-9939-9178-0-1|lang=hy}}</ref>

Loan words from [[Iranian languages]], along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led some linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as [[Paul de Lagarde]] and F. Müller believed that the similarities between the two languages meant that Armenian belonged to the [[Iranian languages|Iranian language family]].<ref name="iranicaonline.org">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/armenia-iv|title=ARMENIA AND IRAN iv. Iranian influences in Armenian Language|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Iranica|access-date=26 October 2015}}</ref> The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist [[Heinrich Hübschmann]] (1875)<ref name="iranicaonline.org"/><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Hübschmann|first=Heinrich|url=https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/books/reader/12-h-h%C3%BCbschmann|encyclopedia=A Reader in Nineteenth Century Historical Indo-European Linguistics|editor-last=Lehmann|editor-first=Winfred P.|title=On the Position of Armenian in the Sphere of the Indo-European Languages|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=1967|access-date=2023-11-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220820053338/https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/books/reader/12-h-h%c3%bcbschmann|archive-date=2022-08-20}}</ref> used the [[comparative method (linguistics)|comparative method]] to distinguish two layers of Iranian words from the older Armenian [[vocabulary]]. He showed that Armenian often had two morphemes for one concept, that the non-Iranian components yielded a consistent [[Proto-Indo-European]] pattern distinct from Iranian, and that the inflectional morphology was different from that of Iranian languages.

====Graeco-Armenian hypothesis====
{{Main|Graeco-Armenian}}

The hypothesis that Greek is Armenian's closest living relative originates with [[Holger Pedersen (linguist)|Holger Pedersen]] (1924), who noted that the number of Greek-Armenian lexical cognates is greater than that of agreements between Armenian and any other Indo-European language. [[Antoine Meillet]] (1925, 1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement and postulated that the parent languages of Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity during the Proto-Indo-European period. Meillet's hypothesis became popular in the wake of his book ''Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine'' (1936). [[Georg Renatus Solta]] (1960) does not go as far as postulating a Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage, but he concludes that considering both the lexicon and morphology, Greek is clearly the dialect to be most closely related to Armenian. [[Eric P. Hamp]] (1976, 91) supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis and even anticipates a time "when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian" (meaning the postulate of a Graeco-Armenian proto-language). Armenian shares the [[augment (Indo-European)|augment]] and a negator derived from the set phrase in the [[Proto-Indo-European language]] {{lang|ine-x-proto|*ne h₂oyu kʷid}} ("never anything" or "always nothing"), the representation of word-initial [[laryngeal theory|laryngeals]] by prothetic vowels, and other phonological and morphological peculiarities with Greek. Nevertheless, as Fortson (2004) comments, "by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, the evidence of any such early kinship has been reduced to a few tantalizing pieces".

====Greco-Armeno-Aryan hypothesis====
{{main|Graeco-Aryan}}

Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan is a hypothetical [[clade]] within the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European family]], ancestral to the [[Greek language]], the Armenian language, and the [[Indo-Iranian languages]].  Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into [[Proto-Greek language|Proto-Greek]] and [[Proto-Indo-Iranian language|Proto-Indo-Iranian]] by the mid-3rd millennium BC. Conceivably, [[Proto-Armenian language|Proto-Armenian]] would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (the ''[[satem]]'' change) but others only with Greek (''s'' > ''h'').

Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists who believe the [[Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses|Indo-European homeland]] to be located in the [[Armenian Highlands]], the "[[Armenian hypothesis]]".<ref>
{{cite book|last=Renfrew|first=Colin|year=1987|title=Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins|location=London|publisher=Pimlico|isbn=0-7126-6612-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Gamkrelidze|first1=Thomas V.|author-link1=Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze|last2=Ivanov|first2=V. V.|author-link2=Vyacheslav Ivanov (philologist)|title=The Early History of Indo-European Languages|journal=Scientific American|date=March 1990|volume=262|issue=3|pages=110–117|jstor=24996796|doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0390-110|bibcode=1990SciAm.262c.110G }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Renfrew | first = Colin | year = 2003 | chapter = Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in Proto-Indo-European | title = Languages in Prehistoric Europe | publisher = Winter | isbn = 3-8253-1449-9}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/files/gray_and_atkinson2003/grayatkinson2003.pdf |first1=Russell D.|last1=Gray|first2=Quentin D.|last2=Atkinson|title=Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin|journal=Nature|volume=426|year=2003|issue=6965 |pages=435–439 |access-date=20 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520041256/http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/files/gray_and_atkinson2003/grayatkinson2003.pdf |archive-date=20 May 2011 |url-status=dead|doi=10.1038/nature02029|pmid=14647380 |bibcode=2003Natur.426..435G |s2cid=42340 }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Mallory|first=James P.|author-link=J. P. Mallory|editor-last1=Mallory|editor-first1=James P.|editor-last2=Adams|editor-first2=Douglas Q.|title=Kuro-Araxes Culture|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture|year=1997|pages=341–42|publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn|url=https://archive.org/details/EncyclopediaOfIndoEuropeanCulture/page/n369/mode/2up|isbn=	1-884964-98-2}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Bammesberger|first=Alfred|chapter=The Place of Europe in Germanic and Indo-European|title=The Cambridge History of the English language|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|year=1992|isbn=978-0-521-26474-7|page=32|doi=10.1017/CHOL9780521264747.003 }} 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."</ref> Early and strong evidence was given by Euler's 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal flection.<ref>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</ref>

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 languages|Indo-Iranian]]).<ref name="p. 6"/><ref name="public.iastate.edu"/>