Nicholas Wade
"Armeniaca": This very informative article summarizes some of the latest discoveries in the unending controversy over the origins of Indo-European languages, which includes, indeed, the early history of the Armenian language. As a marginal note, it is sad to point out that the illustration accompanying the article, which was borrowed from the original scholarly study in the journal Language, includes the family tree of Indo-European languages with a mistake that would embarrass any undergraduate student of linguistics. The illustration (p. 199-200 of the article in Language) literally invents a ridiculous name, "Adapazar," to call one of the branches that derived from Classical Armenian. Any number of elementary textbooks on Indo-European linguistics will
tell readers that there is no such thing as a branch of the Armenian
language called "Adapazar," but one called Western Armenian. The authors assume that Classical Armenian yielded two branches, Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian, as if they were direct descendents, when, actually, they are branches of Modern Armenian.
