Hittites - Language | Technology Trends

Language

Indo-European topics
Indo-European languages (list)
Albanian Armenian Balto-Slavic Celtic Germanic Greek Indo-Iranian Italic Slavic Extinct Anatolian Tocharian Paleo-balkan languages
Proto-Indo-European language
Vocabulary Phonology Sound laws Ablaut Root Nominals Verbs
Indo-European language-speaking peoples
Europe Albanians Balts Celts Greeks Illyrians Italic peoples Germanic peoples Thracians Slavs Asia Anatolians Armenians Indo-Aryans Iranians Tocharians
Proto-Indo-Europeans
Homeland Society Religion
Indo-European archaeology
Abashevo culture Afanasevo culture Andronovo culture Baden culture Beaker culture Catacomb culture Cernavodă culture Chasséen culture Chernoles culture Colchian Corded Ware culture Cucuteni-Trypillian culture Dnieper-Donets culture Funnelbeaker culture Gumelniţa-Karanovo culture Gushi culture Hallstatt culture Karasuk culture Kemi Oba culture Khvalynsk culture Kura-Araxes culture Lusatian culture Kurgan Koban Leyla-Tepe culture Jar-Burial Jastorf culture Khojaly-Gadabay Maykop culture Middle Dnieper culture Narva culture Nordic Bronze Age Novotitorovka culture Poltavka culture Potapovka culture Samara culture Seroglazovo culture Shulaveri-Shomu Sredny Stog culture Srubna culture Terramare culture Trialeti Tumulus culture Unetice culture Urnfield culture Usatovo culture Vučedol culture Yamna culture
Indo-European studies

The Hittite language (or Nesili) is recorded fragmentarily from about the 19th century BC (in the Kültepe texts, see Ishara). It remained in use until about 1100 BC. Hittite is the best attested member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family.

The language of the Hattusa tablets was eventually deciphered by a Czech linguist, Bedřich Hrozný (1879–1952), who on 24 November 1915 announced his results in a lecture at the Near Eastern Society of Berlin. His book about his discovery was printed in Leipzig in 1917, under the title The Language of the Hittites; Its Structure and Its Membership in the Indo-European Linguistic Family. The preface of the book begins with:

The present work undertakes to establish the nature and structure of the hitherto mysterious language of the Hittites, and to decipher this language It will be shown that Hittite is in the main an Indo-European language.

For this reason, the language came to be known as the Hittite language, even though that was not what its speakers had called it. The Hittites themselves apparently called their language nešili "(in the manner) of (the city of) Neša" and hence it has been suggested that the more technically correct term, "Nesite", be used instead. Nonetheless, convention continues and "Hittite" remains the standard term used.

Due to its marked differences in its structure and phonology, some early philologists, most notably Warren Cowgill even argued that it should be classified as a sister language to Indo-European languages (Indo-Hittite), rather than a daughter language. By the end of the Hittite Empire, the Hittite language had become a written language of administration and diplomatic correspondence. The population of most of the Hittite Empire by this time spoke Luwian dialects, another Indo-European language of the Anatolian family that had originated to the west of the Hittite region.

Famous quotes containing the word language:

“The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is “only words” and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)

“There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the earth.”
—Elias Canetti (b. 1905)

“One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)

Main Site Subjects

Human Computer Interface

Internet