Igor M. Diakonoff

Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff (12 January 1915 – 2 May 1999) was a Russian historian, linguist, and translator and a renowned expert on the Ancient Near East and its languages. His brothers were also distinguished historians.

Quotes

• From our point of view there was no migration as such. . . .There was a gradual spread from one center in all directions. In the course of such a spread the groups of dialects and specific isoglosses that had developed were maintained. . . .The biological situation among the speakers of modern Indo-European languages can only be explained through a transfer of languages like a baton, as it were, in a relay race, but not by several thousand miles' migration of the tribes themselves. (152-153).
  • D'iakonov (1985) in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.

• This thesis will receive—and has already received—cheers from dilettantes. Dilettantes desperately need one thing: the proof that the population of the Armenian Plateau spoke Armenian ever since the Palaeolithic period, if possible.
  • D'iakonov (1985) (156-157). commenting on the Armenian homeland theory. in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 13

• The Proto-Indo-European term for 'horse' shows only that horses were known (nobody doubts this); it does not mean that horses were already domesticated.
  • D'iakonov (1985),, 113 in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.
  • 1985. "On the Original Home of the Speakers of Indo-European." Journal of Indo-European Studies 13, nos. 1-2:92-174.