The Indo Hittite Hypothesis

"One of the most important observation at the colloquium, and the one
with which it is appropriate to begin this retrospect, is that the
Indo-Hittite theory is either rapidly becoming (Lehrman) or already is
(Melchert) the framework with which most Indo-Europeanist work. Most
recently, Alexander Lerhman's own work and the cladistic analysis by
Tandy Warnow, Donald Ringe, and Ann Taylor have contributed to the
respectability of the Indo-Hittite theory, which had begun to emerge
from the shadows by the end of the 1980's. In Craig Melchert's words
(p. 233), "The crucial point is that limited but compelling evidence
now shows that the rest of the Indo-European languages underwent a set
of shared common innovations in which Anatolian did not share." For
most of us nonlinguists the agreement on this basic point was a
surprise and created some excitement. From my standpoint as the
organizer of the colloquium, whatever else we nonlinguists learned or
unlearned, that new perspective itself repaid the bother of the
organization. The rapidly growing support for the Indo-Hittite theory
among linguists is obviously a development of considerable
significance for historians, prehistorians, and archaeologists (Drews
2001, p. 248)."

Drews, Robert (2001), "Greater Anatolia: Proto-Anatolian,
Proto-Indo-Hittite and Beyond," in Greater Anatolia and the
Indo-Hittite Language Family, Robert Drews (ed.), Journal of
Indo-European Studies Monograph Number 38.

M. Kelkar