The Indo-European languages of Anatolia can be divided as follows: Hittite is found in cuneiform texts from Hattusa (modern Bogazkoy), capital of the Hittite kingdom.
The language was called ‘‘Nesite’’ by its speaker, referring to Neshea/Kaneshe (modern KUltepe). Hittite was used for almost four centuries, 1570-1220. Luwian can be written with its own hieroglyphs or with cuneiform. Luwian is more innovative than Hittite, and it survived the fall of the Hittite empire and lasted from 1400 to 700 BCE. Palaic, also written with cuneiform, was slightly more conservative than Hittite and Luwian.
In the first millennium, several Anatolian languages are attested, all written with different alphabets that are very similar to, if not derivative from, the Greek one:
• Lycian (fifth and fourth centuries bce) is linguistically very close to Luwian.
• Lydian texts date to the same period as Lycian and share many features with Luwian and Lycian.
• Carian inscriptions have been found in Turkey and Egypt (seventh to third centuries bce). Although its alphabet is related to that of Greek, it has not been fully deciphered yet.
• Pisidian is attested in very short funerary inscriptions from Pisidia in southern Turkey dating to the second and third centuries ce.
• Sidetic is attested in six inscriptions from the city of Side, on the coast of Pamphylia in southeastern Turkey, which date to the third century bce.
All monumental inscriptions at Hattusa are in the Luwian language and hieroglyphic script. At that time, Luwian was the spoken language at Hattusa, while Hittite had died out probably as a spoken language already and survived only as written language. This hieroglyphic script was most likely not devised to write Luwian. Older hieroglyphic seals are in Hittite. In the northeastern outskirts of Hattusa, the rock sanctuary of Yazilikaya was inscribed and decorated with these hieroglyphics to write the names of the deities of a Hurrian pantheon in Hurrian. Cuneiform had been introduced probably already at the end of the third millennium or the beginning of the second. Both the Hurrian and the Hittite syllabaries originated in a North Syrian version of the Old Akkadian syllabary.
Hittite is the earliest Indo-European language attested in writing, and it exhibits many features usually labeled as archaic. Of the postulated three Indo-European laryngeals, Anatolian languages preserved two. Old Hittite had eight nominal cases distinguishable in the singular, although some fell out of use in later dialects, and two genders, animate and inanimate. The verbal system is particularly puzzling when compared to the rest of the Indo-European languages, since Hittite verbs fall under one of two conjugations, the mi - and the hi-conjugations; the former corresponds to the Indo-European primary active endings like Greek dt'domi ‘‘I give’’, but the latter has parallels only in the Indo-European perfect. There are two finite verbal forms: a preterite and a present-future. The present, past perfect, and future can be expressed with a construction using an auxiliary verb. Some aspects of Hittite grammar evolved through time, and one can distinguish three periods of Hittite: Old Hittite (1570-1450), Middle Hittite (1450-1380), and Neo-Hittite (1380-1220).
World History
