|ÐÁ LAND EÁSTAN ÐÆRE MIDDELSÆ c. 1300 BC. MAN |
CAN ÐONE HITTITISČAN CÝNINGDOM SÉON IN ÐÆM
NORÐERMÁSTAN DÆLE ÐÆS ĠELÆNDLÍČNESSEĠEWRITES
PUBLISHED BY KENNETH S. DOIG
(annotations by me in reddish)
I believe the Hittite language is there very oldest attested Indo-European to date, i.e., the oldest written records. It was written in cuneiform.
Hittite (natively nešili "[in the language] of Neša") is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia.
The language is attested in cuneiform, in records from the 16th (Anitta text) down to the 13th century BC, with isolated Hittite loanwords and numerous personal names appearing in an Old Assyrian context from as early as the 20th century BC.
|HITTITES WERE ONE OF THE 1ST|
PEOPLES TO TAME HORSES,
UTILIZE THE WHEEL & MAY HAVE
INVENTED THE CHARIOT K.DOIG
Hittite is the earliest attested Indo-European language, but was only rediscovered more than a century after the Proto-Indo-European hypothesis had been formulated. Because of marked differences
in its structure and phonology, some linguists, most notably Edgar H. Sturtevant and Warren Cowgill, argued that it should be classified as a sister language to the Indo-European languages, rather than a daughter language, formulating the Indo-Hittite hypothesis.
|FRIENDLY HITTITE CHARIOTEER-|
WARRIORS 'ACCIDENTLY' RUNNING
OVER AN ENEMY-SOLDIER. K.DOIG
Other linguists, however, continue to accept the traditional 19th century view of the primacy of Proto-Indo-European and interpret the unusual features of Hittite as mainly due to later innovations. Still others claim that Hittite, as well as its Anatolian cousins, split off from Proto-Indo-European at an early stage, thereby preserving archaisms that were later lost in the other Indo-European languages.
"Hittite" is a modern name, chosen after the identification of the Hatti kingdom with the Hittites mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
In multi-lingual texts found in Hittite locations, passages written in the Hittite language are preceded by the adverb nesili (or nasili, nisili), "in the [speech] of Neša (Kaneš)", an important city before the rise of the Empire. In one case, the label is Kanisumnili, "in the [speech] of the people of Kaneš".
Although the Hittite empire was composed of people from many diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, the Hittite language was used in most of their secular written texts. In spite of various arguments over the appropriateness of the term, Hittite remains the most current term by convention, although some authors make a point of using Nesite.
The first substantive claim as to the affiliation of the Hittite language was made by Jørgen Alexander Knudtzon in 1902 in a book devoted to two letters between the king of Egypt and a Hittite ruler, found at El-Amarna in Egypt. Knudtzon argued that Hittite was Indo-European, largely on the basis of the morphology.
Although he had no bilingual texts, he was able to give a partial interpretation to the two letters because of the formulaic nature of the diplomatic correspondence of the period. His argument was not generally accepted, partly because the morphological similarities he observed between Hittite and Indo-European can be found outside of Indo-European, and partly because the interpretation of the letters was justifiably regarded as uncertain.
Knudtzon was shown definitively to have been correct when a large quantity of tablets written in the familiar Akkadian cuneiform script but in an unknown language was discovered by Hugo Winckler at the modern village of Boğazköy, the former site of Hattusas, the capital of the Hittite Empire. Based on a study of this extensive material, Bedřich Hrozný succeeded in analyzing the language
He presented his argument that the language is Indo-European in a paper published in 1915 (Hrozný 1915), which was soon followed by a grammar of the language (Hrozný 1917).
Hrozný's argument for the Indo-European affiliation of Hittite was thoroughly modern, though poorly substantiated. He focused on the striking similarities in idiosyncratic aspects of the morphology, unlikely to occur independently by chance and unlikely to be borrowed....
These included the r/n alternation (caused by "rhotacism" when certain consontants become to be pronounced as r's. In Germanic & Latin, it was the older intervocalic and word-final Z-sound that evolved into a r.
There was a period, c. 250-350 AD to about 1000 AD, when proto-Norse's original intervocalic, (in the middle of a word) or terminal z's were pronounced "-R" a hypothetical sound between z & r, written as a large R. Many scholars believe this might have been the same sound represented by the Czech letter, (Ř In Czech it is used to denote [r̝], a raised alveolar trill. Its manner of articulation is similar to other alveolar-trills but the tongue is raised; it is partially fricative. It is usually voiced but it also has a voiceless allophone [r̝̊] occurring in the vicinity of voiceless consonants. In Upper-Sorbian, it denotes the voiceless postalveolarfricative [ʃ].
|ASIA MINOR OR ANATOLIA c. 250 BC|
In Silesian, it denotes the voiced retroflexfricative [ʐ], unvoiced to [ʂ] in the vicinity of voiceless consonants .In Czech it is used to denote [r̝], a raised alveolartrill. Its manner of articulation is similar to other alveolartrills but the tongue is raised; it is partially fricative. It is usually voiced but it also has a voiceless allophone [r̝̊] occurring in the vicinity of voiceless consonants. In Upper-Sorbian, it denotes the voiceless postalveolarfricative [ʃ]. In Silesian, it denotes the voiced retroflexfricative [ʐ], uvoiced to [ʂ] in the vicinity of voiceless consonants) Wikipedia
...in some noun stems and vocalic ablaut, both seen in the alternation in the word for water between nominative singular, wadar and genitive singular, wedenas. He also presented a set of regular sound-correspondences.
After a brief initial delay due to the disruption caused by the First World-War, Hrozný's decipherment, tentative grammatical analysis, and demonstration of the Indo-European affiliation of Hittite were rapidly accepted and more broadly substantiated by contemporary scholars such as Edgar H. Sturtevant.
Sturtevant authored the first scientifically acceptable Hittite grammar with a chrestomathy and a glossary. The most up-to-date grammar of the Hittite language is currently Hoffner and Melchert 2008. Wikipedia
Hittite c. 1700 BC
by Carol Justus & Jonathan Slocum
We transliterate, transcribe, gloss, and translate lines 56-61 in the 2nd column of the Hittite tablet catalogued as KUB XVII 28, this section being a hymn to the sun god Istanu. For preliminary explanation, see notes about Hittite and the cuneiform script. Equal signs ('=') are used to transcribe enclitic boundaries; for glossing purposes, we treat these as if they were word boundaries. Text originally prepared by Carol Justus; edited by Jonathan Slocum.
Column II, lines 56-57:
DUTU-i a-as-su an-tu-uh-si SHÀ-ta us-ki-si
Istanui assu antuhsi karta uskisi
Sungod voc; well; man dat/loc; heart dir; see 2.sg. pres. it-dur.
'O Istanu, you see well into the heart of man,'
tu-e-el-la-kan SHÀ-ta Ú-UL ku-is-ki a-us-zi
tuell=a=kan karta natta kuiski auszi
you gen; and (encl); ptc (encl); heart dir; not; someone nom; see 3.sg. pres.
'But no one sees into your heart.'
Column II, lines 58-59:nu ku-is i-da-a-lu i-ya-at
nu kuis idalu iyat
ptc; who; evil; do 3.sg. pret.
'Whoever did evil,'
nu se-ir zi-ik DUTU-us ar-ta-at
nu ser zik Istanus artat
ptc; above; you; Sungod nom; stood 3.sg. pret.
'you, Istanu, stood above;'
I nom; ptc (encl); of-me
'as for me,'
Column II, lines 60-61:
SIG5-an-da-an KASKAL-an i-ya-ah-ha-at
assuwandan KASKAL-an iyahhat
good acc; journey acc; go 1.sg. pret. m-p.
'I have gone on my good journey,'
ku-is-sa-mu i-da-a-lu i-ya-at
kuiss=a=mu idalu iyat
who; also (encl); me (encl); evil; do 3.sg. pret.
'And whoever should do me evil,'
na-an zi-ik us-ki
n=an zik uski
ptc; him (encl); you; see 2.sg. it-dur. imp.
'you, watch him!'
Key to gloss abbreviations:
1. = 1st (person)
2. = 2nd (person)
3. = 3rd (person)
acc. = accusative (case)
dat. = dative (case)
dir. = directive (case)
encl. = enclitic
gen. = genitive (case)
imp. = imperative (mood)
it-dur. = iterative-durative (action type)
loc. = locative (case)
m-p. = medio-passive (voice)
nom. = nominative (case)
pres. = present (tense)
pret. = preterite (tense)
ptc. = particle
sg. = singular (number)
voc. = vocative (case)
Last Updated: Friday, 15 Feb. 2008, 18:41
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