Armeniaca: Comparative Notes (review)

This volume reprints a number of the author’s earlier studies on Armenian, with an emphasis on ‘problems of relative chronology and the reconstruction of earlier stages of development’ (vii). There is also a ‘systematic presentation of … [Armenian] historical phonology’ (133), written by Kortlandt’s Indo-Europeanist colleague Robert S. P. Beekes. The articles have been re-typeset, there is now a consolidated bibliography, and commentaries have been added to some of them, indicating where K has modified his opinions about various issues (for example, in his commentary on the second paper in the book, ‘A note on the Armenian palatalization’ (10–12), K writes ‘I now think that the final velar of hing ‘five’ was taken from the ordinal’ (12)).

The articles themselves are generally brief, ranging in length from two to nine pages. Each, however, contains an original solution to a problem of Armenian linguistics, whether it be the development of the Armenian word for ‘blood’, the ‘Great Armenian puzzle’ (which has to do with the proposed development of Indo-European *dw to Armenian rk, as in erku ‘two’), or the earliest relationships of Armenian and Albanian. I do wish that K had expanded his argument at various points, since some of the essays are rather terse, and even a sentence or two would have increased their value for the reader who is not as well versed in these topics as K himself so obviously is. (I am not the only reader to have thought this; Beekes comments in the preface to his historical phonology that he often urged K to ‘add a few words [to his papers] to make them more easily understandable’ (133), but that K generally refused, ‘pointing out that everything had been said already in the text’ (133).)

Beekes’s historical phonology offers a useful survey, treating issues such as the earliest Armenians, Armenian dialects, accent, prothetic vowels, and the development of Indo-European laryngeals, and also presents a detailed relative chronology, illustrated with copious examples.

The volume itself is generally well designed, despite some disconcerting typos and a somewhat irregular print quality. In sum, this is a useful collection of articles, and will be of value for those interested in Armenian and comparative Indo-European linguistics.