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The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective
Modern languages like English, Spanish, Russian and Hindi as well as ancient languages like Greek, Latin and Sanskrit all belong to the Indo-European language family, which means that they all descend from a common ancestor. But how, more precisely, are the Indo-European languages related to each other? This book brings together pioneering research from a team of international scholars to address this fundamental question. It provides an introduction to linguistic subgrouping as well as offering comprehensive, systematic and up-to-date analyses of the ten main branches of the Indo-European language family: Anatolian, Tocharian, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Armenian, Albanian, Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic. By highlighting that these branches are saliently different from each other, yet at the same time display striking similarities, the book demonstrates the early diversification of the Indo-European language family, spoken today by half the world's population. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Contents:
1 - Introduction, pp 1-17
By Thomas Olander
2 - Methodology in Linguistic Subgrouping, pp 18-32
By James Clackson
3 - Computational Approaches to Linguistic Chronology and Subgrouping, pp 33-51
By Dariusz Piwowarczyk
4 - What We Can (and Can’t) Learn from Computational Cladistics, pp 52-62
By Don Ringe
5 - Anatolian, pp 63-82
By Alwin Kloekhorst
6 - Tocharian, pp 83-101
By Michaël Peyrot
7 - Italo-Celtic, pp 102-113
By Michael Weiss
8 - Italic, pp 114-134
By Michael Weiss
9 - Celtic, pp 135-151
By Anders Richardt Jørgensen
10 - Germanic, pp 152-172
By Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard Hansen, Guus Jan Kroonen
11 - Greek, pp 173-201
By Lucien van Beek
12 - Armenian, pp 202-222
By Birgit Anette Olsen, Rasmus Thorsø
13 - Albanian, pp 223-245
By Adam Hyllested, Brian D. Joseph
14 - Indo-Iranian, pp 246-268
By Martin Joachim Kümmel
15 - Balto-Slavic, pp 269-292
By Tijmen Pronk
Contents:
1 - Introduction, pp 1-17
By Thomas Olander
2 - Methodology in Linguistic Subgrouping, pp 18-32
By James Clackson
3 - Computational Approaches to Linguistic Chronology and Subgrouping, pp 33-51
By Dariusz Piwowarczyk
4 - What We Can (and Can’t) Learn from Computational Cladistics, pp 52-62
By Don Ringe
5 - Anatolian, pp 63-82
By Alwin Kloekhorst
6 - Tocharian, pp 83-101
By Michaël Peyrot
7 - Italo-Celtic, pp 102-113
By Michael Weiss
8 - Italic, pp 114-134
By Michael Weiss
9 - Celtic, pp 135-151
By Anders Richardt Jørgensen
10 - Germanic, pp 152-172
By Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard Hansen, Guus Jan Kroonen
11 - Greek, pp 173-201
By Lucien van Beek
12 - Armenian, pp 202-222
By Birgit Anette Olsen, Rasmus Thorsø
13 - Albanian, pp 223-245
By Adam Hyllested, Brian D. Joseph
14 - Indo-Iranian, pp 246-268
By Martin Joachim Kümmel
15 - Balto-Slavic, pp 269-292
By Tijmen Pronk
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297 pages, ebook
First published September 22, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 6, 2024
Not one of those dozens of basic introductions to comparative IE linguistics, but rather a refreshingly head-on tackling of the problem of the genealogical relationships between the various IE language groups by some of the best comparative linguists alive today (and a couple of others).
After a remarkably lucid chapter on methodology by James Clackson and two relatively pointless ones on the computational approaches this work otherwise explicitly puts to one side (computer touchers always acknowledge the fundamental disqualifying problem with computational cladistics—the assumption of a constant or at least predictable rate of change—but then invariably just... ignore it), the rest of the book is individual chapters for each of the ten major language groups (and an extra one for Italo-Celtic), each of which lays out the defining isoglosses of that group—not just sound changes, but also morphological innovations and lexical points of interest—and discusses how the languages in that group relate to each other (when applicable) as well as the position of the language group within the IE family tree. Many of these chapters are written by exactly the person you would want for the job: Kloekhorst for Anatolian, Weiss for Italic and Italo-Celtic, Kroonen (as a co-author) for Germanic, Van Beek for Greek, Pronk for Balto-Slavic. (Alright, so I like the Leiden crowd. They didn't get Martirosyan for Armenian, but the two Danes they did get did a decent job.)
The only sour note is Martin Kümmel's chapter on Indo-Iranian, which, as usual, is rendered very hard to enjoy by his deeply obnoxious insistence on his ownidiotic idiosyncratic notation for the laryngeals and various velars, necessitating a lot of flipping back and forth between the text and the key (which is, at least, provided: *h₁ = *h, *h₂ = *χ, *h₃ = *ʁ, *k̑ = *k, *g̑ = *g, *k = *q, *g = *ɢ); it's possible he's a competent linguist, I suppose, but I'm not willing to put in the work to find out.
None of the chapters come to any startling new insights about the internal structure of Indo-European, of course, but the discussion is valuable and generally solid, and the rest of it provides an incredible quick reference for language features an Indo-Europeanist would find useful for the various language groups I don't think I've ever seen at this level in a single work anywhere—not to mention a treasure trove of trivia with which to annoy everyone around you.
I read this book as a PDF through my university library, but I'll be buying a physical copy soon; it's absolutely worth the money and the shelf space.
After a remarkably lucid chapter on methodology by James Clackson and two relatively pointless ones on the computational approaches this work otherwise explicitly puts to one side (computer touchers always acknowledge the fundamental disqualifying problem with computational cladistics—the assumption of a constant or at least predictable rate of change—but then invariably just... ignore it), the rest of the book is individual chapters for each of the ten major language groups (and an extra one for Italo-Celtic), each of which lays out the defining isoglosses of that group—not just sound changes, but also morphological innovations and lexical points of interest—and discusses how the languages in that group relate to each other (when applicable) as well as the position of the language group within the IE family tree. Many of these chapters are written by exactly the person you would want for the job: Kloekhorst for Anatolian, Weiss for Italic and Italo-Celtic, Kroonen (as a co-author) for Germanic, Van Beek for Greek, Pronk for Balto-Slavic. (Alright, so I like the Leiden crowd. They didn't get Martirosyan for Armenian, but the two Danes they did get did a decent job.)
The only sour note is Martin Kümmel's chapter on Indo-Iranian, which, as usual, is rendered very hard to enjoy by his deeply obnoxious insistence on his own
None of the chapters come to any startling new insights about the internal structure of Indo-European, of course, but the discussion is valuable and generally solid, and the rest of it provides an incredible quick reference for language features an Indo-Europeanist would find useful for the various language groups I don't think I've ever seen at this level in a single work anywhere—not to mention a treasure trove of trivia with which to annoy everyone around you.
I read this book as a PDF through my university library, but I'll be buying a physical copy soon; it's absolutely worth the money and the shelf space.
October 9, 2022
For readers with training in Indo-European linguistics, this is a fun and informative collection on subgrouping within the IE family. Each of its chapters takes a look at a particular branch of IE and 1) sets out, from a modern state-of-the-art, the shared innovations that make that a distinct branch; and 2) the branch is compared to other branches with the goal of perhaps identifying some higher-level subgrouping between the Proto-Indo-European period and the split of that particular branch.
Especially noteworthy here is Adam Hyllested & Brian D. Joseph’s contribution on Albanian, which presents some new and important details of Albanian historical phonology. That makes this chapter a must-read followup to the standard introductions to historical Albanian sound changes that have been published in the last twenty years or so.
Especially noteworthy here is Adam Hyllested & Brian D. Joseph’s contribution on Albanian, which presents some new and important details of Albanian historical phonology. That makes this chapter a must-read followup to the standard introductions to historical Albanian sound changes that have been published in the last twenty years or so.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews