Some historical linguists agree that some peculiarities of that language like non-alphabetic symbols engraved on some dedicational fragments of pots, and genitive in-" ai " found in almost all the complete sequences are suggestive of a connection to the Anatolian languages, and in particular, to Hittite.
42.
Steinbauer criticized Vennemann for assuming Basque roots with initial consonant clusters ( which are commonly believed to be adapted from other languages ), for ignoring indications that the ancient Etruscan language seems more closely related to western Anatolian languages, and for several methodological flaws, stating that " a scientific discourse with Vennemann must face insurmountable obstacles ".
43.
The preservation of the laryngeals, and the lack of any evidence that Hittite shared grammatical features possessed by the other early Indo-European languages, has led some philologists to believe that the Anatolian languages split from the rest of Proto-Indo-European much earlier than the other divisions of the proto-language-see Classification above.
44.
He argues that, when features differ between the Anatolian languages ( including Hittite ) and the other Indo-European languages, comparisons with Uralic can help to establish which group has the more archaic forms ( 2008b : 88 ) and that, conversely, the success of such comparisons helps to establish the Indo-Uralic thesis ( 2008b : 94 ).
45.
The generally accepted clades branched from the Proto-Indo-European language are, in alphabetical order, the Proto-Albanian language, Proto-Anatolian language, Proto-Armenian language, Proto-Balto-Slavic language, Proto-Celtic language, Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Greek language, Proto-Indo-Iranian language, Proto-Italic language, and the Proto-Tocharian language.
46.
:It would be hard to say, but the article Indo-European languages indicates that the oldest attested group of Indo-European languages is the Anatolian languages of which the Hittites were speakers, as early as the 16th century BC . The Hittites never ruled Europe proper, but did control most of Asia Minor and so were close, and likely had a large influence over much of southeastern Europe.
47.
For example, in Anatolian the nominative singular of the second person pronoun comes from * " ti ( H ) ", whereas in the non-Anatolian languages it comes from * " tu ( H ) "; in Proto-Uralic it was * " ti ", which agrees with evidence from internal reconstruction that Anatolian has the more archaic form ( 2008b : 93 ).
48.
Following Alexander's death in 323 BC, Anatolia was subsequently divided into a number of small Hellenistic kingdoms, all of which became part of the Roman Republic by the mid-1st century BC . The process of Hellenization that began with Alexander's conquest accelerated under Roman rule, and by the early centuries AD the local Anatolian languages and cultures had become extinct, being largely replaced by ancient Greek language and culture.
49.
The SOV default word order with other orders used to express emphasis ( e . g ., verb subject object to emphasize the verb ) is attested in Old Indic, Old Iranian, Old Latin and Albanian prefer SVO, Insular Celtic has VSO as the default order, and even the Anatolian languages show some signs of this word order shift . The inconsistent order preference in Baltic, Slavic and Germanic can be attributed to contact with outside OV languages.
