ABOUT THIS BOOK

Tracing the echoes of ancient tongues—where language meets history.

This work translates Meillet’s classic philological study from the original 1908 French edition, which itself was based upon a course Meillet delivered at the Collège de France in 1906-1907. This edition includes the author's new introduction for the 1922 edition. Indexes, missing from the French editions, have been added by the translator for the convenience of the reader, as have bibliographical references to salient works from the half-century after original composition.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Antoine Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne and was a student of Michel Bréal and Ferdinand de Saussure, completing his doctorate in 1897. In 1902 he took the chair in Armenian at the École des Langues Orientales and was elected to the College of France in 1905.

Samuel N. Rosenberg was for many years a professor of French and Italian at Indiana University.

REVIEWS

“Meillet’s book is a minor classic. The translation, on the whole, is good.”

—Slavic and East European Journal

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Translator's Note

Abbreviations

Author's Foreword to the Second Printing

Author's Prefatory Note

Introduction

Chapter I. Vocabulary of the Northwest

Chapter II.Indo-Oranian

Chapter III. Italo-Celtic

Chapter IV. Balto-Slavic

Chapter V. Teh Gutturals

Chapter VI. The Vowels o and a

Chapter VII. The Cluster *-u-

Chapter VIII. The Development of *ə

Chapter IX. The Cluster *-wy-

Chapter X. The Voiced Aspirated Stops

Chapter XI. The Voiceless Aspirated Stops

Chapter XII. The Sibilant *s

Chapter XIII. The Germanic and Armenian Consonant Shifts

Chapter XIV. The Augment

XV. The Perfect

XVI. The Present Suffix *-ye-

XVII. A Few Non Suffixes

XVIII. Case-endings with -bh- and -m-

XIX. The Genitive Plural of *-ā—Stems

XX. Some Observations on Vocabulary

Conclusion

Notes

Index verborum

Index nominum