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| | Proto-Indo-European |
 | | Some theories have also linked Italic and Celtic closely as Italo-Celtic, or Germanic and Balto-Slavic together, or Greek and Armenian; however, the similarities between these groups may well be due to contact rather than common ancestry after the break-up of PIE, or to dialect variations within PIE before its break-up. |
 | | PIE seems to have been a highly-inflecting language, with eight noun cases, three genders, three numbers (singular, plural and dual), and several tenses, moods and voices (the exact number is disputed). |
 | | This claim is largely based on the simplicity of the Hittite grammatical system compared with that of Sanskrit and Greek, which may represent an earlier system elaborated on in the ancestor of the Indo-European branch. |
| www.chiark.greenend.org.uk /~marisal/ie/pie.html (493 words) |
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