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Comment by TFNA | Hacker News Reader

I actually work in this field, so I can encourage you to do some further reading and get to grips with the terminology. "Indo-European" remains among experts the most popular way to refer to the entire language family, Anatolian and non-Anatolian. Terms like "Nuclear IE" and "Core IE" are often employed to distinguish the non-Anatolian languages.

"Indo-Anatolian" for the higher-level family is a term that some may use here and there, but no expert would ever make a "well, acktually..." remark as you just did to those in a discussion, professional or layman, using "Indo-European"

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It's not consensus (yet?), but Kloekhorst's categorization does put the Anatolian split first and early, making it essentially two separate branches of PIE. He isn't concerned about the terminology, but it does allow for alternatives, and "Proto-Indo-Hittite" is now a century-old term.

Despite the terms used, Anatolian and non-Anatolian languages are seen as two separate branches.

Maybe I'm being too charitable, but I hadn't read that user's comment as a "well, acktually", especially given the chain of comments, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Everyone puts the Anatolian split first and early. It doesn't mean the use of the term "Indo-European" for the entire family, Anatolian included, is in any way superseded or unpopular among experts.

I agree, but that's why I said "Despite the terms used." I'm suggesting, moderately, that the user might be thinking of that split and how others have used alternative terms to better describe the situation.

Certainly, that Hittite broke off first is the consensus, and thus it makes sense (but isn't the consensus) that we should say something like "Indo-Hittite". BUT, one is a matter of describing history, and the other is an arbitrary label attached to that description.

Your "well akshually" was a nice way of softening the original poster's brief comment. I just don't think any of us truly disagree (barring that user's subsequent thoughts, of course).

Point taken. I'm a medievalist first and my interface with historical linguistics is Gallo-Romance languages, I'm just tracking the rest from afar. Call it a special interest. I've seen "Indo-Anatolian" pop up in literature, I was under the impression that it was the correct nomenclature at the moment.

In any case, my point was the early split of Anatolian and "the rest", however you want to call it.

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