From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 46482
Date: 2006-10-26
> "One of the most important observation at the colloquium, and the oneWell, there's no longer anything heterodox about the assumption of a
> 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.