Armenian hypothesis

The Armenian hypothesis of the Proto-Indo-European homeland, proposed by Georgian (Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze) and Russian linguist Vyacheslav Ivanov in 1985, suggests that Proto-Indo-European was spoken during the 4th millennium BC in the Armenian Highlands.

The two presented the hypothesis in two articles in Vestnik drevnej istorii and then in a much larger work.

They claim that the Indo-European languages came from a language in Armenia to the Pontic steppe from which it expanded, according to the Kurgan hypothesis, into Western Europe. The Hittite, Indo-Iranian, Greek and Armenian branches split from the Armenian homeland. The Indo-Hittite model and does not include the Anatolian languages in its scenario, which are identified with the Kura-Araxes culture.

The phonological peculiarities proposed in the glottalic theory would be best preserved in Armenian and the Germanic languages. Armenian remained in situ and would be particularly archaic despite of its late attestation. Proto-Greek would be practically equivalent to Mycenaean Greek from the 17th century BC and closely associate Greek migration to Greece with the Indo-Aryan migration to India at about the same time (the Indo-European expansion at the transition to the Late Bronze Age, including the possibility of Indo-European Kassites).