Benjamin W. Fortson - Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction

Praise forIndo-European Language and Culture

Ben Fortsons book is the best existing introduction to Indo-European linguistics: up-to-date and comprehensive, accessible without being oversimplified. Students and interested laypersons will find it indispensable.

Don Ringe, University of Pennsylvania

Fortsons Introduction continues to be the textbook of choice for introductory Indo-European. In its presentation of both fact and theory, it is a marvel of accuracy, completeness, and sound judgment.

Brent Vine, UCLA

Praise for the Previous Edition:

Superb... [Fortsons] short general discussions of the histories and ecologies of the individual languages are the best I have ever read.

Recensiones Salesianum, 2008

I would like to conclude by stressing that this is an excellent textbook. I have taught from it, and the students in my class not only learned a great deal from it, they also seemed to enjoy the book almost as much as I did.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Finally, there is a reliable, engaging and accessible presentation of the communis opinio. And there are even exercises!... Fortson has produced an excellent book that fulfills its goals admirably. I hope it will inspire a renaissance of Indo-European linguistics in English speaking countries.

Journal of the American Oriental Society

Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics

The books included in this series provide comprehensive accounts of some of the most central and most rapidly developing areas of research in linguistics. Intended primarily for introductory and post-introductory students, they include exercises, discussion points and suggestions for further reading.

This second edition first published 2010
2010 Benjamin W. Fortson IV

Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (1, 2004)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fortson, Benjamin W.

Indo-european language and culture : an introduction / Benjamin W. Fortson. 2nd ed. p. cm. (Blackwell textbooks in linguistics ; 19)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-8895-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4051-8896-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Indo-European languages. 2. Indo-Europeans. I. Title. P561.F67 2009
410dc22

2008051179

Contents

List of Illustrations

The Indo-European family tree

One of the fragments composing KBo 17.1

The Hieroglyphic Luvian inscription HAMA 2

The Lydian bilingual

Yasna 44.4 in Avestan script

The Pylos tablet Ta 722

Column V of the Gortynian law-code

The Duenos inscription

The Ceres inscription