Talk:Anatolian languages

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This article might as well mention (or list) all the languages classified as Anatolian languages. Alexander 007 07:23, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

While Lycian is considered to be clearly a descendant of Luwian (though possibly of a dialect slightly different from those attested), Lydian is not considered by Anatolianists to be a descendant of either Hittite or Luwian. No such claim is to be found in the specialist literature. The only place I have encountered it is on some amateur websites, where no evidence for the claim is given. To be sure, I consulted Craig Melchert, one of the leading Anatolianists, who confirmed that none of the experts consider Lydian a descendant of Hittite or Luwian. Talk of "admixture" of Hittite is not only unsupported by the literature but is vague. "Admixture" is not a technical term in historical linguistics. What is this intended to mean?Bill 06:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Extinction

I think this is inexact. The truth would depend on your definition of branch, if minor fragmentarily attested languages are believed to be part of a "branch" or not.

This makes Anatolian the first known branch of Indo-European that has become extinct, 
the only other known branch that has no living descendants being Tocharian, 
which ceased to be spoken around the 8th century.

惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 15:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a point. What's a branch, anyway? Is South Slavic, for example, a branch? Perhaps specify "primary branch" or something. —Tamfang (talk) 02:45, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Turkish

Removed: "Some words descended from the Anatolian languages may still live in the modern Turkish language, especially place names such as Side and Adana."

First of all, place names are not words. Second of all, no source was provided. Third of all, this was added together with fringe material that was already deleted by another editor.

While there MIGHT actually be Hittite words that passed into Greek and thence into Turkish, the words provided by the person who added this material were not among them. If anyone has a scholarly source for Turkish words that can be traced back to Hittite, please add.Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 21:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Toponyms are too words! But they are not core lexical items, which is what they would have to be in order that the point be remarkable at all. Otherwise Terlincthun in Pas-de-Calais would count as evidence that Dutch "lives on" in French (which is incidentally true, but has to be attested by proper lexical items such as the word houle). 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:90BF:94E1:70DD:6587 (talk) 08:39, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Masculine/feminine noun class system ("gender") as an example of Hittite archaism.

I don't feel that Hittite having two noun classes (common and neuter) in contrast to the three noun classes of some other languages (including Sanskrit, ancient Greek, and Latin), is the best of examples when it comes to illustrate the archaisms of Hittite and its close relatives. While I accept that it's the predominant (and, in my own opinion, most likely right) view that masculine and feminine classes have merged in Anatolian rather than being an innovation in all the other ancient attested IE languages, I do feel that in this context (where the issue is Anatolian's archaisms rather than a discussion of noun classes), it would be better to furnish examples that are more clear-cut and uncontroversial. As may be seen if you review the recent history of edits, I began by removing the adjective "rudimentary" describing Hittite's common/neuter noun classes. That led me to thinking a bit more over the passage, and to do the whole issue justice, one would have to go into a detailed discussion about when and where the feminine gender emerged as a noun category in IE language history. While I certainly wouldn't dream of bringing into doubt that that's an interesting discussion, I do feel that an article intended to describe characteristics of Anatolian is not the best of places to bring up that discussion. Would anybody mind if I tried to think of a better example? Bantaar (talk) 23:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

A common-gender merger (out of masculine+feminine) happens "at the drop of a hat" in the evolution of a language. It's happened (and is still happening!) all over the IE language tree and as such is not in itself a good criterion by which to set a major group apart (it is unlikely to be plesiomorphous for a major branch). So far I would tend to agree with Bantaar. However, I think the distinction under discussion is that of an animate/inanimate distinction. This could either be an innovation that sets the Anatolian branch apart, or a more archaic distinction that occurred in, and influenced, PIE at its earliest stages of formation, or perhaps a feature of non-IE substrate languages that influenced the Anatolian languages through some sort of Sprachbund effect. The trouble is that the animate/inanimate distinction can be to some degree coextensive with the common gender / neuter distinction (or the distinction between neuter on the one hand and the two others taken together on the other). 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:90BF:94E1:70DD:6587 (talk) 08:49, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

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Rewrites & Additions

I've rewritten and expanded much of the article to provide better sourcing and explanation of the features of the language family, as well as clarify the thornier issues around gender and other archaisms. Any commentary or additional sourcing for the phonology and grammar would be welcome. TheLateDentarthurdent (talk) 18:38, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

outdated literature

The references 2,3 are since long outdated. The latest Bouckaert et al. corrections by Atkinson, regarding a severe counting error and significantly younger dates, was published in Science 2013.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:8093:582B:458:ED0C (talk) 17:17, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Rigidly ordered slots

No doubt this is true, but as written this may strike the reader as more remarkable than it really is. In English we say walkers' but not *walks'er, and we could describe the situation as just such a rigid ordering, demanding that the verb-to-agent-noun-particle -er must precede the plural marker -s, which itself must come before the genitive marker ' (I am glossing over the fact that this last marker is mute, which explains incidentally why so few people know how to spell it). 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:90BF:94E1:70DD:6587 (talk) 08:35, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

undiscovered in alternate timelines?

Undiscovered until the late 19th and early 20th centuries,

How can "and" belong here? Did someone discover the Anatolian languages in 1880 but sit on the discovery until someone else discovered them in 1910? —Tamfang (talk) 05:22, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Origins

Last sentence of the section Origins says:

Statistical research by Quentin Atkinson and others using Bayesian inference and glottochronological markers favors an Indo-European origin in Anatolia, though the method's validity and accuracy are subject to debate.

I think this means that, rather than being an early branch off Indo-European, Anatolian would, according to this theory, be the stem, the root, of Indo-European, i.e., actually identical to PIE (though not necessarily PIE as reconstructed). Whether correct, or credible, or not, I think the article should be clearer about it, if this is what is meant here. Nø (talk) 11:41, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

No it doesn't mean that, because it could equally mean that the Anatolian grouping is descended from the stem and simply happened to be spoken in the same place. 2A00:23C5:1191:5C01:B9B1:E6EF:BEE9:7B18 (talk) 09:04, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Hellenizin'

There appears to have been a bit of an edit war over whether Greek colonization, as a cause of Hellenization, needs explicit mention. Comments? —Tamfang (talk) 02:46, 17 May 2023 (UTC)