| Alarodian | |
|---|---|
| (controversial) | |
| Geographic distribution | Caucasus,Anatolia |
| Linguistic classification | Proposedlanguage family |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | None |
TheAlarodian languages are a proposed language family that encompasses theNortheast Caucasian (Nakh–Dagestanian) languages and the extinctHurro-Urartian languages.
The termAlarodian is derived from GreekἈλαρόδιοι (Alarodioi), the name of an ethnic group mentioned byHerodotus that has often been equated with the people of the kingdom ofUrartu, although this equation is considered doubtful by modern scholars. A leading Urartologist, Paul Zimansky, rejects a connection between the Urartians and the Alarodians.[1] Almost nothing is known about the Alarodians except that they "were armed like theColchians andSaspeires," according toHerodotus.[2] The Colchians and Saspeires are generally associated with theKartvelians and/orScythians, neither of whom spoke a Hurro-Urartian or Northeast Caucasian language.
Historically, the term "Alarodian languages" was employed for several language family proposals of various size. Sayce (1880) employed the name for a small group that comprisedUrartian (then called "Vannic") and theKartvelian languages (Georgian,Laz,Mingrelian, andSvan).[3] In 1884, the German orientalistFritz Hommel further included all languages of the Caucasus and theancient Near East which did not belong to theIndo-European,Semitic, and the now obsoleteUral–Altaic language families, e.g.Elamite,Kassite.[4] Later, he extended the Alarodian family to include the pre-Indo-European languages of Europe, e.g.Lemnian,Etruscan,Ligurian. Karel Oštir's (1921) version of Alarodian included all aforementioned languages, furtherBasque,Sumerian,Egyptian, theCushitic andBerber languages.[5][6] The historical Alarodian proposal – especially Oštir's maximal extension – was not well-received by the majority of scholars ("Ce petit livre donne le vertige"—"This little book makes one dizzy",A. Meillet),[7] and eventually abandoned.
The term "Alarodian languages" was revived byI. M. Diakonoff for the proposed language family that unites the Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian languages.[8] Work by I. M. Diakonoff andStarostin (1986) asserted the connection between "Nakh-Dagestanian" (NE Caucasian) and Hurro-Urartian on the basis of a comparison of their reconstruction to Proto-Nakh-Dagestanian, later published in 1994 withNikolayev.[9]
The inclusion ofEtruscan and the relatedTyrsenian languages has also been proposed, first by Orel and Starostin in 1990, on the basis of sound correspondences.[10] Facchetti has argued that there is a "curious" set of isoglosses between Etruscan and Hurrian,[11] while Pliev proposed instead that Etruscan had aNakh substrate.[12] In 2006, Robertson further developed the hypothesis of including Tyrsenian based on proposed Etruscan/Nakh sound correspondences and reconstructions for the numerals.[13]
The validity of the Alarodian hypothesis remains fairly controversial.[14] Many scholars doubt that the Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian languages are related,[15][16][17] or believe that, while a connection is possible, the evidence is far from conclusive.[18][19][20] The Indo-EuropeanistAllan R. Bomhard argues instead for a genetic relationship between Hurro-Urartian and Indo-European[21][22] (most experts exclude a close genetic relationship between Northeast Caucasian and Indo-European, making the two hypotheses probably exclusive). The Caucasian language specialistJohanna Nichols grounds her skepticism about the Alarodian theory in that "neither Diakonoff and Starostin, nor Nikolayev and Starostin, take on the burden of proof and discuss whether the incidence of resemblances exceeds chance expectation, nor do they present examples of the kind of shared morphological paradigmaticity that would strongly support genetic relatedness".[23]
Nevertheless, Petri Kallio, a Uralicist and Indo-Europeanist, argues that from the perspective of what relationships are most likely forNortheast Caucasian, the Alarodian theory is the most promising, more so than the attempts to link Northeast and Northwest Caucasian,[24] let alone attempts to link Northeast Caucasian to Indo-European, Kartvelian, Etruscan, Burushaski, or "Dene-Caucasian". A major obstacle to progress on the question (and any other questions about relationships with or within Northeast Caucasian) is the lack of consensus about the reconstruction of Proto-Northeast Caucasian itself.[24]
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