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.