Everything about Graeco-armenian Language totally explained
Graeco-Armenian (also
Helleno-Armenian) refers to the hypothesis that the
Greek language and the
Armenian language share a common ancestor post-dating the
Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). Its notability may be comparable to that of
Italo-Celtic or
Balto-Slavic. The hypothetical Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage would need to date to the early
3rd millennium BC, only barely differentiated from either late PIE or
Graeco-Aryan.
The hypothesis originates with
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.
Meillet (1925, 1927) further investigated morphological and phonological agreement, postulating that the parent languages of Greek and Armenian were dialects in immediate geographical proximity in the
parent language. Meillet's hypothesis became popular in the wake of his
Esquisse (1936). Solta (1960) doesn't 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 most closely related to Armenian. Hamp (1976:91) supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis, anticipating even a time "when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian" (meaning the postulate of a Graeco-Armenian proto-language).
Clackson (1994:202) is again more reserved, holding the evidence in favour of a positive Graeco-Armenian sub-group to be inconclusive and tends to include Armenian into a larger
Graeco-Aryan family.
Evaluation of the hypothesis is tied up with the analysis of the poorly attested
Paleo-Balkan languages, including
Phrygian and
Macedonian. While Greek is attested from very early times, allowing a secure reconstruction of a
Proto-Greek language dating to the late 3rd millennium, the history of Armenian is opaque. It was strongly influenced by
Iranian languages; in particular, it's a
Satem language.
According to
Herodotus, the
Armenians were originally colonists of the
Phrygians. If this is true, they'd have moved to what would become
Armenia in around 700 BC, and the Armenian language would be, in spite of heavy Satem influence, descended from the Centum language of the Phrygians (for example the Satem character would be secondary, comparable to, for example,
French). Quite apart from such phonological points, there are a number of undisputed lexical and grammatical peculiarities linking Greek, Phrygian and Armenian, although it's unclear whether they should be interpreted as evidence of a genetic relationship, or of
areal contact.
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