Relationship To Preceding Languages
Luwian has numerous archaisms, and so is important both to Indo-European linguists and to students of the Bronze Age Aegean.
Craig Melchert used Luwian to support the view that the Proto-Indo-European language had three distinct sets of velar consonants:
- Plain velars
- Palatovelars
- Labiovelars
For Melchert, PIE *ḱ > Luwian z (probably ); *k > k; and *kʷ > ku (probably ).
Luwian has also been enlisted for its verb kalut(t)i(ya)-, which means "make the rounds of" and is probably derived from *kalutta/i- "circle". It has been argued that this derives from a proto-Anatolian word for "wheel", which in turn would have derived from the common word for "wheel" found in all other Indo-European families. The wheel was invented in the 5th millennium BCE and, if kaluti does derive from it, then the Anatolian branch left PIE after its invention (so validating the Kurgan hypothesis as applicable to Anatolian). However kaluti need not imply a concrete wheel, and so need not have derived from a PIE word with that meaning. The IE words for a wheel may well have arisen in those other IE languages after the Anatolian split.
Read more about this topic: Luwian Language
Famous quotes containing the words relationship to, relationship, preceding and/or languages:
“Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The proper aim of education is to promote significant learning. Significant learning entails development. Development means successively asking broader and deeper questions of the relationship between oneself and the world. This is as true for first graders as graduate students, for fledging artists as graying accountants.”
—Laurent A. Daloz (20th century)
“The world is never the same as it was.... And that’s as it should be. Every generation has the obligation to make the preceding generation irrelevant. It happens in little ways: no longer knowing the names of bands or even recognizing their sounds of music; no longer implicitly understanding life’s rules: wearing plaid Bermuda shorts to the grocery and not giving it another thought.”
—Jim Shahin (20th century)
“Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.”
—J.G. (James Graham)