Indo-European Languages
Anatolian Family
Carol Justus and Jonathan Slocum
The oldest known group of Indo-European languages is the Anatolian group. Hittite, the oldest and most richly attested of these languages, was spoken in Central Anatolia by historical Hittite kings (ca. 1650-1180 BC) and, before these kings, probably as early as 2000 BC at Kanesh (Kultepe).
Before the first Hittite clay tablets were found and deciphered, a people known from the Bible as "Hittite" were still a mystery, apart from some details such as the fact that Bathsheba's first husband was a Hittite general in King David's army. The people that we call the early Hittites did not in fact call themselves Hittite, or their language Hittite. Their kings called their land the "Hatti Land" and Hittite scribes called their language "Nes(h)ite" (from Nesa = Kanesh), but we still refer to them as "Hittite."
The capital of the ancient Hittite Empire was mountaintop Hattusa, with walls five miles or more in circumference. Nearby Yazılıkaya was an important cult center where the Late Hittite king, Tuthaliya IV (ca. 1230 BC) venerated the Hurrian Stormgod, Tessup. As modern Boghazkale, Hattusa lies about 100 miles east of Ankara, not too far from Çorum. One of several other Hittite sites, Kushaklı-Sarissa, lies farther east near Sivas on the upper Kızıl Irmak (Hittite Marrasantiya, Greek Halys) River.
Although neither Hittite nor any other Anatolian language survived into the modern era, their influences are still with us among the Greek creation myths and other cultural relics. The Hittite word for 'water', watar, and other Hittite linguistic artifacts are still recognizable if one scratches the surface.
Archaeological excavations are still uncovering artifacts, including new clay tablets. Ongoing tasks include studying the texts written on the tablets or inscribed in stone, completing dictionaries and grammars, and writing a Hittite history. For this work, scholars now share online resources in addition to many essential published books and journals.
Recommended Reading
- Bryce, Trevor. 1998. The Kingdom of the Hittites. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Overview of Hittite history)
- Ceram, C. W. 1955. The Secret of the Hittites. The Discovery of an Empire. Translated from the German original by Richard & Clara Winston. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. (Popular illustrated account of the discovery of the Hittites)
- Melchert, H. Craig, ed. 2003. The Luwians. Leiden: Brill. (Important articles on a major non-Hittite Indo-European group)
- Roaf, Michael. 1990. Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. New York & Oxford: Facts on File. (Overview with maps includes the Hittites and their neighbors)
- Sturtevant, Edgar H. 1933. Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language (William Dwight Whitney Linguistic Series). 1951 rev. ed. by E. Adelaide Hahn. New Haven: Yale University Press. (Basic outline of Hittite Grammar in its Indo-European context; many etymologies have been updated)
See Online:
- Hittite Online (language lessons);
- Indo-European Languages: Evolution and Locale Maps;
- Web Links to Anatolian resources (incl. archaeology & history).