Hurrian language
Encyclopedia
Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians
(Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia
around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni
kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in Syria
. It is generally believed that the speakers of this language originally came from the Armenian mountains
and spread over southeast Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.
that, together with Urartian
, constitutes the Hurro-Urartian
family. I.M. Diakonoff and S. Starostin
see similarities between Hurrian and the Northeast Caucasian languages
, and thus place it in the Alarodian
family. Examples of the proposed phonological correspondences are PEC *l- > Hurrian t-, PEC *-dl- > Hurrian -r- (Diakonoff & Starostin).
Some scholars, such as I. J. Gelb and E. A. Speiser, tried to equate Hurrians and "Subarians
".
, Tuttul
, Babylon
, Ugarit
and others. Early study of the language, however, was entirely based on the Mitanni letter
, found in 1887 at Amarna
in Egypt, written by the Hurrian king Tushratta
to the pharaoh Amenhotep III
. The Hurro-Urartian relation was recognized as early as 1890 by Sayce (ZA 5, 1890, 260-274) and Jensen (ZA 6, 1891, 34-72).
In the thirteenth century BC, invasions from the west by the Hittites and the south by the Assyria
ns brought the end of the Mitanni empire, which was divided between the two conquering powers. In the following century, attacks by the Sea Peoples
brought a swift end to the last vestiges of the Hurrian language. It is around this time that other languages, such as the Hittite language
and the Ugaritic language
also became extinct, in what is known as the Bronze Age collapse
. In the texts of these languages, as well as those of Akkadian
or Urartian, many Hurrian names and places can be found.
Renewed interest in Hurrian was triggered by texts discovered in Bogazköy in the 1910s and Ugarit in the 1930s. Speiser (1941) published the first comprehensive grammar of Hurrian. Since the 1980s, the Nuzi
corpus from the archive of Silwa-tessup has been edited by G. Wilhelm. Since the late 1980s, significant progress was made due to the discovery of a Hurrian-Hittite bilingual, edited by E. Neu (StBoT 32).
, spoken in the Mitanni provincial capital of Arrapha
.
As can be seen from the table, Hurrian did not possess a voiced
-voiceless
distinction. There is no voiced consonant with an unvoiced counterpart, nor vice versa. However, based on evidence from the cuneiform script, there seem to have been voiced allophones of consonants other than /ts/, which occurred in certain environments: between two voiced phonemes (sonorants or vowels), and, surprisingly, also word-finally. Sometimes a voiced consonant is written in these situations, i.e. b (for p), d (for t), g (for k), v (for f) or ž (for š), and, very rarely, ǧ (for h, ḫ). All consonants except /w/ and /j/ can be long or short. The long (geminate) consonants occur only between vowels. In the cuneiform, as in the Latin transcription, geminated consonants are indicated by doubling the corresponding symbol, so ...VC-CV... Short consonants are written ...V-CV..., for example mānnatta ("I am") is written ma-a-an-na-at-ta.
Since /f/ was not found in the Sumerian cuneiform script, the Hurrians used the symbols representing /p/, /b/ or /w/. An /f/ can be recognised in words where this transciption varies from text to text. In cases where a word occurs only once, with a p, it cannot be known if it was originally meant to represent a /p/ or an /f/. In final syllables containing a, /f/ becomes diphthongised to /u/, e.g. tānōšau (<*tān-ōš-af)) "I did". /s/ is traditionally transcribed by /š/, because the cuneiform script adapted the sign indicating /š/ for this phoneme. /ts/ is regularly transcribed by z, and /x/ by ḫ or h. In Hurrian, /r/ and /l/ do not occur at the beginning of a word.
Vowels, just like consonants, can be either long or short. In the cuneiform script, this is indicated by placing an additional vowel symbol between the CV and VC syllables, giving CV-V-VC. Short vowels are indicated by a simple CV-VC pairing. In the Latin transcription, long vowels are indicated with a macron, ā, ē, ī, ō, and ū. For /o/, which is absent in the Sumerian script, the sign for U is used, whereas /u/ is represented by Ú.
es could be attached to existing stems to form new words. For example, attardi (ancestor) from attai (father), futki (son) from fut (to beget), aštohhe (feminine) from ašti (woman). Hurrian also provided many verbal suffixes, which often changed the valency
of the verb they modify.
1. Root; 2. Derivational suffixes; 3. Article (see below); 4. Enclitic possessive pronouns; 5. Plural marker; 6. Case morphemes; 7. Anaphoric suffix (formally identical to the article) serving as the basis for morphemes received through Suffixaufnahme
, see below; 8. Plural marker received through Suffixaufnahme (agreement); 9. Case marker received through Suffixaufnahme (agreement); 10. Enclitic personal pronouns in the absolutive case
(usually not syntactically connected to the noun, except for the third plural -lla); 11. Other enclitic particles (often with the meaning of conjunctions
)
Of course, these elements are not all obligatory, and in fact a noun can occur as a single root followed by nothing except zero-suffixes for case and number. Despite the general agglutinative structure of the language, the plural marker (5) merges with the case morphemes (6) in ways which do not seem to be entirely predictable, so singular and plural forms of the case endings are usually listed separately. While the absolutive pronoun clitics attached to a noun are not necessarily connected to it in any way in terms of meaning (rather, they designate the object or intransitive subject of a nearby verb), the third plural pronoun clitic -lla can be used to signal the plural of the host noun in the absolutive.
All Hurrian nouns end in a vowel. Most end in /i/; a very few end in /a/ (words for relatives and divine names) and /e/ (a few suffix derivations). This stem-final vowel disappears when certain endings are attached to it, such as case endings that begin with a vowel, or the article suffix. Examples: kāz-ōš (like a cup) from kāzi (cup), awarra (the fields) from awari (field). Hurrian has 13 cases
in its system of declension. One of these, the Equative case
, has a different form in both of the main dialects. In Hattusha and Mari, the usual ending is -oš, termed equative I, whereas in the Mitanni letter we find the form -nna, called equative II. Another case, the so-called 'e-case', is very rare, and carries a genitive or allative meaning.
Like many languages in the region, Hurrian is an ergative language, which means that the same case is used for the subject of an intransitive verb
as for the object of a transitive one; this case is called the absolutive. For the subject of a transitive verb, however, the ergative case
is used. Hurrian has two numbers, singular and plural. The following table outlines the case endings (the terms used for some of the more obscure cases vary between different authors).
In certain phonological environments, these endings can vary. The f of the genitive and dative endings merges with a preceding p or t giving pp and tt respectively, e.g. Teššuppe (of Teššup), Hepat-te (of Hepat). The associative can be combined with the instrumental, as in šēna-nn-ae (brother-instr-dat), meaning 'brotherly'.
The so-called essive case
can convey the meaning "as" and a condition, but also to express direction, the aim of a demand, the transition from one condition to another, the direct object in antipassive constructions (where the transitive subject receives the absolutive case instead of the ergative), and, in the variety of Nuzi
, also the dative.
In Hurrian, the function of the so-called "article
" is not entirely clear, inasmuch as its use does not seem to resemble closely a typical definite article
. It is attached directly to the noun, but before any case endings, e.g. tiwē-na-še (object.art.gen.pl) (of the object). The article is unmarked in the absolutive singular – e.g. kāzi 'cup'. The /n/ of the article merges with a preceding /n/, /l/ or /r/ giving /nn/, /ll/ and /rr/ respectively, e.g. ēn-na (the gods), ōl-la (the others), awar-ra (the fields). In these cases, the stem-final vowel /i/ has been dropped; the singulars of these words are ēni (god), ōli (another), awari (field). If there are two consonants preceding the final /i/, an epenthetic vowel /u/ is inserted between them, e.g. hafurun-ne-ta (heaven-art-all.sg, to heaven), the stem of which is hafurni (heaven).
One prominent feature of Hurrian is the phenomenon of Suffixaufnahme
, or suffix absorption, which it shares with Urartian and the geographically proximate Kartvelian languages. In this process, the dependent modifiers of a noun share the noun's case suffixes. Between the suffix of the dependent noun and the case ending comes the article, which agrees with the referent in number, for example, with an adjective:
Suffixaufnahme also occurs with other modifiers, such as a noun in the genitive modiying another noun, in which case the following nouns takes a possessive pronoun.
The phenomenon is also found when the head noun is in the locative, instrumental or equative. In the absolutive singular, Suffixaufnahme would be meaningless, as the case and number are unmarked. When more than two genitives occur, they are merged, so Suffixaufnahme only occurs on the innermost genitive, as in the following example:
s (indicated by '='). Hurrian clitics stand for unique words, but are attached to other words as though they were suffixes. Transitivity
and intransitivity
are clearly indicated in the morphology; only transitive verbs take endings that agree with the person and number of their subject. The direct object and intransitive subject, when they are not represented by an independent noun, are expressed through the use of clitics, or pronouns (see below). Moreover, suffixes can be added to the verb stem that modify its meaning, including valency
-changing morphemes such as -an(n)-- (causative
), -ant (applicative
) and -ukar (reciprocative). The meanings of many such suffixes have yet to be decoded.
The "morpheme chain" of the verb is as follows: 1. Root; 2. Derivational suffixes; 3. Tense/Aspect suffixes; 4. Intransitivity (?) marker -t-; 5. Suffix -imbu- (function unclear); [5/6. Ergative third plural person suffix -it- (only in Old Hurrian);] 6. Valency
markers (intransitive/transitive/antipassive); 7. Negative suffixes; 8. Ergative person suffixes; 9. Ergative number suffixes; 10. Enclitic pronouns (in the absolutive case); 11. Enclitic particles (often with the meaning of conjunctions)
As with the noun, not all of these elements must be present in each verb form, and indeed some of them are mutually incompatible. The negative suffixes (7), the ergative person suffixes (8) and the ergative number suffixes (9) merge in ways which are not entirely predictable, so the person endings are usually listed in separate singular and plural versions.
. The present tense
is unmarked, the preterite
is marked by -ōš and the future
by ēt. The preterite and future suffixes also the suffix -t, which indicates intransitivity, but occurs only in truly intransitive forms, not in antipassive ones; in the present, this suffix never occurs. Another, separate, -t suffix is found in all tenses in transitive sentences – it indicates a 3rd person plural subject. In the indicative this suffix is mandatory, but in all other moods it is optional. Because these two suffixes are identical, ambiguous forms can occur; thus, unētta can mean "they will bring [something]" or "he/she/it will come", depending on the context.
After these endings come the vowel of transitivity. It is -a when the verb is intransitive, -i when the verb is in the antipassive and -o (in the Mitanni letter, -i) in transitive verbs. The suffix -o is dropped immediately after the derivational suffixes. In transitive verbs, the -o occurs only in the present, while in the other tenses transitivity is instead indicated by the presence (or absence) of the aforementioned -t suffixes.
In the next position, the suffix of negation can occur; in transitive sentences, it is -wa, whereas in intransitive and antipassive ones it is -kkV. Here, the V represents a repetition of the vowel that precedes the negative suffix, although when this is /a/, both vowels become /o/. When the negative suffix is immediately followed by a clitic pronoun (except for =nna), its vowel is /a/, regardless of the vowel that preceded it, e.g. mann-o-kka=til=an (be-intr-neg-1.pl.abs-and), "and we are not...". The following table gives the tense, transivity and negation markers:
After this, in transitive verbs, comes the subject marker. The following forms are found:
The suffixes of the first person, both plural and singular, and the second person plural suffix merge together with the preceding suffixes -i and -wa. However, in the Mari and Hattusha dialects, the suffix of transitivity -o does not merge with other endings. The distinction between singular and plural in the third person is provided by the suffix -t, which comes directly after the tense marker. In the third person, when the suffix -wa occurs before the subject marker, it can be replaced by -ma, also expressing the negative: irnōhoš-i-ā-ma, (like-trans-3rd-neg) "He does not like [it]".
In the Old Hurrian of Hattusha the ending of the third person singular was -m. A third person plural ergative subject was marked with the suffix -it-, which, however, unlike the other ergative endings, occurred before instead of after the transitivity vowel: contrast uv-o-m "she slaughtered" with tun-it-o "they forced". In the intransitive and antipassive, there was also a subject marker, -p for the third person but unmarked for the others. It is unknown whether this suffix was also found on transitive objects.
If a verb form is nominalised, e.g. to create a relative clause
, then another suffix is used: -šše. Nominalised verbs can undergo Suffixaufnahme. Verb forms can also take other enclitic suffixes; see 'particles' below.
, several special verb forms are used, which are derived from the indicative (non-modal) forms. Wishes and commands are formed with an optative system, whose principal characteristic is the element -i, which is attached directly to the verb stem. There is no difference between the form for transitive and intransitive verbs, there being agreement with the subject of the sentence. Tense markers are unchanged in the optative.
1 In the optative forms of the third person, the /n/ ending is present in the Mari/Hattusha dialect when the following word begins with a consonant.
The so-called final form, which is needed to express a purpose ("in order to"), is formed in conjunction with the 'with', and has different endings. In the singular, the suffixes -ae, -ai, -ilae and -ilai are found, which after /l/ and /r/ become -lae/-lai and -rae/rai respectively. In the plural the same endings are used, though sometimes the plural suffix -ša is found as well, bbut this is not always the case.
To express a possibility, the potential form must be used. For intransitive verbs, the ending is -ilefa or olefa (-lefa and -refa after /l,r/), which does not need to agree with the subject. Transitive potential forms are formed with -illet and -allet, which are suffixed to the normal endings of the transitive indicative forms. However, this form is only attested in Mitanni and only in the third person. The potential form is also occasionally used to express a wish.
The desiderative form is used to express an urgent request. It is also only found in the third person, and only with transitive verbs. The ending for the third person singular is -ilanni, and for the plural, -itanni.
. The first nominalised participle, the present participle, is characterised by the ending -iri or -ire, e.g. pairi, "the one building, the builder", hapiri, "the one moving, the nomad". The second nominalised participle, the perfect participle, is formed with the ending -aure, and is only attested once, in Nuzi: hušaure, "the bound one". Another special form is only found in the dialect of Hattusha. It can only be formed from transitive verbs, and it specifies an agent of the first person. Its ending is -ilia, and this participle can undergo Suffixaufnahme.
The infinitive, which can also be found nominalised, is formed with the suffix -umme, e.g. fahrumme, "to be good", "the state/property of being good"
The variant forms -me, -ma and -lle of the third person absolutive pronouns only before certain conjunctions, namely ai (when), inna (when), inu, unu (who), panu (though), and the relative pronouns iya and iye. When an enclitic personal pronoun is attached to a noun, an extensive system of sound changes determines the final form. The enclitic -nna of the third person singular behaves differently from the other pronouns: when it is preceded by an ergative suffix it, unlike the other pronouns, combines with the suffix to form šša, whereas with all other pronouns the š of the ergative is dropped. Moreover, a word-final vowel /i/ changes to /e/ or /a/ when any enclitic pronoun other than -nna is attached.
s cannot occur independently, but are only enclitic. They are attached to nouns or nominalised verbs. The form of the pronoun is dependent on that of the following morpheme. The table below outlines the possible forms:
The final vowel of the noun stem is dropped before an attached possessive pronoun, e.g. šeniffe ("my brother", from šena "brother"). It remains, however, when a consonant-initial pronoun is atached: attaif ("your father", from attai, "father")
s, most of them built on the dative and genitive cases. They are almost exclusively postpositions – only one preposition (āpi + dative, "for"), is attested in the texts from Hattusha. All adpositions can themselves generally be in the allative, rarely in the dative or in the "e-case".
Some examples: N-fa āyita or N-fenē āyē (in the presence of; from āyi "face"). N-fa etīta or N-fa etīfa (for, because of; from eti "body, person"), N-fenē etiyē (concerning), N-fa furīta (in sight of; from furi, "sight, look"), and only in Hattusha N-fa āpita (in front of; from āpi, "front"). Besides these, there is ištani "space between," which is used with a plural possessive pronoun and the locative, for "between us/you/them", e.g. ištaniffaša (between us, under us).
from 1 to 10 as well as a few higher ones are attested. Ordinal numbers
are formed with the suffix -(š)še or ši, which becomes -ze or -zi after /n/. The following table gives an overview of the numeral system:
Distributive numbers carry the suffix -ate, e.g. kikate (by threes), tumnate (by fours). The suffix -āmha denotes multiplicatives, e.g. šināmha (twice), ēmanāmha (thrice). All cardinal numbers end in a vowel, which drops when an enclitic is attached.
s, the noun regularly comes at the end. Adjectives, numbers, and genitive modifiers come before the noun they modify. Relative clause
s, however, tend to surround the noun, which means that the noun the relative clause modifies stands in the middle of the relative clause. Hurrian has at its disposal several paradigms for constructing relative clauses. It can either use the relative pronouns iya and iye, which has already been described under 'pronouns' above, or the nominalising suffix -šše attached to a verb, which undergoes Suffixaufnahme. The third possibility is for both these markers to occur (see example 16 below). The noun, which is represented by the relative clause, can take any case, but within the relative clause can only have the function of the absolutive, i.e. it can only be the subject of an intransitive relative clause or the object of a transitive one.
As has been outlined above, Hurrian transitive verbs normally take a subject in the ergative and an object in the absolutive (except for the antipassive constructions, where these are replaced by the absolutive and the essive respectively). The indirect object of ditransitive verbs, however, can be in the dative, locative, allative, or with some verbs also in the absolutive.
). The relative pronouns iya and iye may be a loan from the Indo-Aryan
language of the Mitanni people who had lived in the region before the Hurrians; cf. Sanskrit
ya. Conversely, Hurrian gave many loan words to the nearby Akkadian dialects, for example hāpiru (nomad) from the Hurrian hāpiri (nomad). There may also be Hurrian loanwords among the languages of the Caucasus
, but this cannot be verified, as there are no written records of Caucasian languages from the time of the Hurrians. The source language of similar sounding words is thus unconfirmable.
Translation: "Those things, which my brother truly said and wanted as a whole, now I have done them, but tenfold."
, Ugarit
(Ras Shamra), and Sapinuwa
(but unpublished). Also, one of the longest of the Amarna letters
is Hurrian; written by King Tushratta
of Mitanni to Pharaoh Amenhotep III
. It was the only long Hurrian text known until a multi-tablet collection of literature in Hurrian with a Hittite
translation was discovered at Hattusas in 1983.
Important finds were made at Ortaköy
(Sapinuwa) in the 1990s, including several bilinguals. Most of them remain unedited as of 2007.
No Hurrian texts are attested from the first millennium BC (unless one wants to consider Urartian a late Hurrian dialect), but scattered loanwords persist in Assyrian, such as the goddess Savuska mentioned by Sargon II
.
Hurrians
The Hurrians were a people of the Ancient Near East who lived in Northern Mesopotamia and adjacent regions during the Bronze Age.The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni. The population of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia to a large part consisted of Hurrians, and...
(Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni
Mitanni
Mitanni or Hanigalbat was a loosely organized Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia from ca. 1500 BC–1300 BC...
kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. It is generally believed that the speakers of this language originally came from the Armenian mountains
Armenian Highland
The Armenian Highland is the central-most and highest of three land-locked plateaus that together form the northern sector of the Middle East...
and spread over southeast Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.
Classification
Hurrian is an ergative, agglutinative languageAgglutinative language
An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view...
that, together with Urartian
Urartian language
Urartian, Vannic, and Chaldean are conventional names for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu that was located in the region of Lake Van, with its capital near the site of the modern town of Van, in the Armenian Highland, modern-day Eastern Anatolia region of...
, constitutes the Hurro-Urartian
Hurro-Urartian languages
The Hurro-Urartian languages are an extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, comprising only two known languages: Hurrian and Urartian, both of which were spoken in the Taurus mountains area.-Classification:...
family. I.M. Diakonoff and S. Starostin
Sergei Starostin
Dr. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin was a Russian historical linguist and scholar, best known for his work with hypothetical proto-languages, including his work on the reconstruction of the Proto-Borean language, the controversial theory of Altaic languages and the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian...
see similarities between Hurrian and the Northeast Caucasian languages
Northeast Caucasian languages
The Northeast Caucasian languages constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, northern Azerbaijan, and in northeastern Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East...
, and thus place it in the Alarodian
Alarodian languages
The Alarodian languages are a proposed language family that encompasses the Northeast Caucasian languages and the extinct Hurro-Urartian languages.- History of the concept :...
family. Examples of the proposed phonological correspondences are PEC *l- > Hurrian t-, PEC *-dl- > Hurrian -r- (Diakonoff & Starostin).
Some scholars, such as I. J. Gelb and E. A. Speiser, tried to equate Hurrians and "Subarians
Subarians
The land of Subartu or Subar is mentioned in Bronze Age literature...
".
History
The earliest Hurrian text fragments consist of lists of names and places from the end of the third millennium BC. The first full texts date to the reigns of Kings Tišatal and Urkeš, at the start of the second milliennium BC. Archeologists have discovered the texts of numerous spells, incantations, prophecies and letters at sites including Hattusha, MariMari, Syria
Mari was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers north-west of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some 120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria...
, Tuttul
Tuttul
The Bronze Age town of Tuttul is identified with the archaeological site of Tell Bi'a in Ar-Raqqah Governorate, northern Syria. Tell Bi'a is located near the modern city of Ar-Raqqah and the confluence of the rivers Balikh and Euphrates. During the Middle Bronze Age , Tuttul was city sacred to the...
, Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, Ugarit
Ugarit
Ugarit was an ancient port city in the eastern Mediterranean at the Ras Shamra headland near Latakia, Syria. It is located near Minet el-Beida in northern Syria. It is some seven miles north of Laodicea ad Mare and approximately fifty miles east of Cyprus...
and others. Early study of the language, however, was entirely based on the Mitanni letter
Amarna letters
The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom...
, found in 1887 at Amarna
Amarna
Amarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly–established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty , and abandoned shortly afterwards...
in Egypt, written by the Hurrian king Tushratta
Tushratta
Tushratta was a king of Mitanni at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the reign of Akhenaten -- approximately the late 14th century BC. He was the son of Shuttarna II...
to the pharaoh Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died...
. The Hurro-Urartian relation was recognized as early as 1890 by Sayce (ZA 5, 1890, 260-274) and Jensen (ZA 6, 1891, 34-72).
In the thirteenth century BC, invasions from the west by the Hittites and the south by the Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
ns brought the end of the Mitanni empire, which was divided between the two conquering powers. In the following century, attacks by the Sea Peoples
Sea Peoples
The Sea Peoples were a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BC who sailed into the eastern Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late 19th dynasty and especially during year 8 of Ramesses III of the 20th Dynasty...
brought a swift end to the last vestiges of the Hurrian language. It is around this time that other languages, such as the Hittite language
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
and the Ugaritic language
Ugaritic language
The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Ugaritic, Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew:-Grammar:Ugaritic is an inflected language, and as a Semitic language its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian...
also became extinct, in what is known as the Bronze Age collapse
Bronze Age collapse
The Bronze Age collapse is a transition in southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that some historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive...
. In the texts of these languages, as well as those of Akkadian
Akkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
or Urartian, many Hurrian names and places can be found.
Renewed interest in Hurrian was triggered by texts discovered in Bogazköy in the 1910s and Ugarit in the 1930s. Speiser (1941) published the first comprehensive grammar of Hurrian. Since the 1980s, the Nuzi
Nuzi
Nuzi was an ancient Mesopotamian city southwest of Kirkuk in modern Al Ta'amim Governorate of Iraq, located near the Tigris river...
corpus from the archive of Silwa-tessup has been edited by G. Wilhelm. Since the late 1980s, significant progress was made due to the discovery of a Hurrian-Hittite bilingual, edited by E. Neu (StBoT 32).
Dialects
The Hurrian of the Mitanni letter differs significantly from that used in the texts at Hattusha and other Hittite centres, as well as from earlier Hurrian texts from various locations. The non-Mitanni letter varieties, while not entirely homogeneous, are commonly subsumed under the designation Old Hurrian. Whereas in Mitanni the vowel pairs i/e and u/o are differentiated, in the Hattusha dialect they have merged into i and u respectively. There are also differences in morphology, some of which are mentioned in the course of the exposition below. Nonetheless, it is clear that these represent dialects of one language. Another Hurrian dialect is likely represented in several texts from Ugarit, but they are so poorly preserved that little can be said about them, save that spelling patterns used elsewhere to represent Hurrian phonemes are virtually ignored in them. There was also a Hurrian-Akkadian creole, called NuziNuzi
Nuzi was an ancient Mesopotamian city southwest of Kirkuk in modern Al Ta'amim Governorate of Iraq, located near the Tigris river...
, spoken in the Mitanni provincial capital of Arrapha
Arrapha
Arrapha was an ancient Assyrian city that existed in what is today the city of Kirkuk, Iraq. The city was founded around 2000 BC and derived its name from the old Assyrian word Arabkha which was later changed to Arrapha...
.
Consonants
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Labio- dental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | |||
| Plosive | p | t | k | ||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
(ts) | ||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
f | s | x | ||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
w | j | |||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l |
As can be seen from the table, Hurrian did not possess a voiced
VOICED
Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation...
-voiceless
Voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...
distinction. There is no voiced consonant with an unvoiced counterpart, nor vice versa. However, based on evidence from the cuneiform script, there seem to have been voiced allophones of consonants other than /ts/, which occurred in certain environments: between two voiced phonemes (sonorants or vowels), and, surprisingly, also word-finally. Sometimes a voiced consonant is written in these situations, i.e. b (for p), d (for t), g (for k), v (for f) or ž (for š), and, very rarely, ǧ (for h, ḫ). All consonants except /w/ and /j/ can be long or short. The long (geminate) consonants occur only between vowels. In the cuneiform, as in the Latin transcription, geminated consonants are indicated by doubling the corresponding symbol, so ...VC-CV... Short consonants are written ...V-CV..., for example mānnatta ("I am") is written ma-a-an-na-at-ta.
Since /f/ was not found in the Sumerian cuneiform script, the Hurrians used the symbols representing /p/, /b/ or /w/. An /f/ can be recognised in words where this transciption varies from text to text. In cases where a word occurs only once, with a p, it cannot be known if it was originally meant to represent a /p/ or an /f/. In final syllables containing a, /f/ becomes diphthongised to /u/, e.g. tānōšau (<*tān-ōš-af)) "I did". /s/ is traditionally transcribed by /š/, because the cuneiform script adapted the sign indicating /š/ for this phoneme. /ts/ is regularly transcribed by z, and /x/ by ḫ or h. In Hurrian, /r/ and /l/ do not occur at the beginning of a word.
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | u | |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
e | o | |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a |
Vowels, just like consonants, can be either long or short. In the cuneiform script, this is indicated by placing an additional vowel symbol between the CV and VC syllables, giving CV-V-VC. Short vowels are indicated by a simple CV-VC pairing. In the Latin transcription, long vowels are indicated with a macron, ā, ē, ī, ō, and ū. For /o/, which is absent in the Sumerian script, the sign for U is used, whereas /u/ is represented by Ú.
Word derivation
While Hurrian could not combine multiple stems to form new stems, a large number of suffixSuffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es could be attached to existing stems to form new words. For example, attardi (ancestor) from attai (father), futki (son) from fut (to beget), aštohhe (feminine) from ašti (woman). Hurrian also provided many verbal suffixes, which often changed the valency
Valency (linguistics)
In linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate...
of the verb they modify.
Nominal morphology
The nominal morphology of Hurrian employs numerous suffixes and/or enclitics, which always follow a certain order. The resulting "morpheme chain" is as follows:1. Root; 2. Derivational suffixes; 3. Article (see below); 4. Enclitic possessive pronouns; 5. Plural marker; 6. Case morphemes; 7. Anaphoric suffix (formally identical to the article) serving as the basis for morphemes received through Suffixaufnahme
Suffixaufnahme
Suffixaufnahme is a linguistic phenomenon used in forming a genitive construction, whereby prototypically a genitive noun agrees with its head noun...
, see below; 8. Plural marker received through Suffixaufnahme (agreement); 9. Case marker received through Suffixaufnahme (agreement); 10. Enclitic personal pronouns in the absolutive case
Absolutive case
The absolutive case is the unmarked grammatical case of a core argument of a verb which is used as the citation form of a noun.-In ergative languages:...
(usually not syntactically connected to the noun, except for the third plural -lla); 11. Other enclitic particles (often with the meaning of conjunctions
Conjunctions
Conjunctions, is a biannual American literary journal based at Bard College. It was founded in 1981 and is currently edited by Bradford Morrow....
)
Of course, these elements are not all obligatory, and in fact a noun can occur as a single root followed by nothing except zero-suffixes for case and number. Despite the general agglutinative structure of the language, the plural marker (5) merges with the case morphemes (6) in ways which do not seem to be entirely predictable, so singular and plural forms of the case endings are usually listed separately. While the absolutive pronoun clitics attached to a noun are not necessarily connected to it in any way in terms of meaning (rather, they designate the object or intransitive subject of a nearby verb), the third plural pronoun clitic -lla can be used to signal the plural of the host noun in the absolutive.
Case and number
All Hurrian nouns end in a vowel. Most end in /i/; a very few end in /a/ (words for relatives and divine names) and /e/ (a few suffix derivations). This stem-final vowel disappears when certain endings are attached to it, such as case endings that begin with a vowel, or the article suffix. Examples: kāz-ōš (like a cup) from kāzi (cup), awarra (the fields) from awari (field). Hurrian has 13 cases
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
in its system of declension. One of these, the Equative case
Equative case
Equative is a case with the meaning of comparison, or likening. The equative case has been used in very few languages in history. It was used in the Sumerian language....
, has a different form in both of the main dialects. In Hattusha and Mari, the usual ending is -oš, termed equative I, whereas in the Mitanni letter we find the form -nna, called equative II. Another case, the so-called 'e-case', is very rare, and carries a genitive or allative meaning.
Like many languages in the region, Hurrian is an ergative language, which means that the same case is used for the subject of an intransitive verb
Intransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
as for the object of a transitive one; this case is called the absolutive. For the subject of a transitive verb, however, the ergative case
Ergative case
The ergative case is the grammatical case that identifies the subject of a transitive verb in ergative-absolutive languages.-Characteristics:...
is used. Hurrian has two numbers, singular and plural. The following table outlines the case endings (the terms used for some of the more obscure cases vary between different authors).
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Absolutive Absolutive case The absolutive case is the unmarked grammatical case of a core argument of a verb which is used as the citation form of a noun.-In ergative languages:... |
-Ø | -Ø, -lla |
| Ergative Ergative case The ergative case is the grammatical case that identifies the subject of a transitive verb in ergative-absolutive languages.-Characteristics:... |
-š | -(a)šuš |
| Genitive Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
-fe, -we | -(a)še |
| Dative Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
-fa, -wa | -(a)ša |
| Essive Essive case The essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary location or state of being, often equivalent to the English "as a ".In the Finnish language, this case is marked by adding "-na/-nä" to the stem of the noun.... (in, at ...) |
-a | -(a)ša, -a |
| Allative Allative case Allative case is a type of the locative cases used in several languages. The term allative is generally used for the lative case in the majority of languages which do not make finer distinctions.-Finnish language:In the Finnish language, the allative is the fifth of the locative cases, with the... (to ...) |
-ta | -(a)šta |
| Ablative Ablative case In linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ... (from ...r) |
-tan | -(a)štan |
| Instrumental Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action... (with ...) |
-ae | not found |
| Ablative-Instrumental (through/by ...) |
-n(i), -ne | -(a)šani, -(a)šane |
| Comitative Comitative case The comitative case , also known as the associative case , is a grammatical case that denotes companionship, and is used where English would use "in company with" or "together with"... (together with ...) |
-ra | -(a)šura |
| Associative (as ...) |
-nn(i) | not found (often extrapolated -(a)šunn(i)) |
| Equative Equative case Equative is a case with the meaning of comparison, or likening. The equative case has been used in very few languages in history. It was used in the Sumerian language.... I (like ...) |
-ōš | not found |
| Equative II | -nna | -(a)šunna |
| 'e-Case' | -ē | not found |
In certain phonological environments, these endings can vary. The f of the genitive and dative endings merges with a preceding p or t giving pp and tt respectively, e.g. Teššuppe (of Teššup), Hepat-te (of Hepat). The associative can be combined with the instrumental, as in šēna-nn-ae (brother-instr-dat), meaning 'brotherly'.
The so-called essive case
Essive case
The essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary location or state of being, often equivalent to the English "as a ".In the Finnish language, this case is marked by adding "-na/-nä" to the stem of the noun....
can convey the meaning "as" and a condition, but also to express direction, the aim of a demand, the transition from one condition to another, the direct object in antipassive constructions (where the transitive subject receives the absolutive case instead of the ergative), and, in the variety of Nuzi
Nuzi
Nuzi was an ancient Mesopotamian city southwest of Kirkuk in modern Al Ta'amim Governorate of Iraq, located near the Tigris river...
, also the dative.
The article
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Absolutive | -Ø | -na |
| all other cases | -ne |
In Hurrian, the function of the so-called "article
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
" is not entirely clear, inasmuch as its use does not seem to resemble closely a typical definite article
Definite Article
Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzard's 1996 performance released on VHS. It was recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre...
. It is attached directly to the noun, but before any case endings, e.g. tiwē-na-še (object.art.gen.pl) (of the object). The article is unmarked in the absolutive singular – e.g. kāzi 'cup'. The /n/ of the article merges with a preceding /n/, /l/ or /r/ giving /nn/, /ll/ and /rr/ respectively, e.g. ēn-na (the gods), ōl-la (the others), awar-ra (the fields). In these cases, the stem-final vowel /i/ has been dropped; the singulars of these words are ēni (god), ōli (another), awari (field). If there are two consonants preceding the final /i/, an epenthetic vowel /u/ is inserted between them, e.g. hafurun-ne-ta (heaven-art-all.sg, to heaven), the stem of which is hafurni (heaven).
Suffixaufnahme
One prominent feature of Hurrian is the phenomenon of Suffixaufnahme
Suffixaufnahme
Suffixaufnahme is a linguistic phenomenon used in forming a genitive construction, whereby prototypically a genitive noun agrees with its head noun...
, or suffix absorption, which it shares with Urartian and the geographically proximate Kartvelian languages. In this process, the dependent modifiers of a noun share the noun's case suffixes. Between the suffix of the dependent noun and the case ending comes the article, which agrees with the referent in number, for example, with an adjective:
| (1) | ḫurwoḫḫeneš ōmīnneš | ||
| ḫurw-oḫḫe-ne-š | ōmīn-ne-š | ||
| Hurrian-adj-art.sg-erg.sg | land-art.sg-erg.sg | ||
| "the Hurrian land" | |||
Suffixaufnahme also occurs with other modifiers, such as a noun in the genitive modiying another noun, in which case the following nouns takes a possessive pronoun.
| (2) | šēniffufenefe ōmīnīfe | ||
| šēn-iffu-fe-ne-fe | ōmīni-i-fe | ||
| brother-my-gen.sg-art.sg-gen.sg | land-his-gen.sg | ||
| "of the land of my brother" (lit, "of my brother his land") | |||
The phenomenon is also found when the head noun is in the locative, instrumental or equative. In the absolutive singular, Suffixaufnahme would be meaningless, as the case and number are unmarked. When more than two genitives occur, they are merged, so Suffixaufnahme only occurs on the innermost genitive, as in the following example:
| (3) | ōmīni Mizrinefenefe efrīfe aštīnna | ||||||
| ōmīni | Mizri-ne-fe-ne-fe | efri-i-fe | ašti-i=nna | ||||
| country | Egypt-art.sg-gen.sg-art.sg-gen.sg | ruler-its-gen.sg | lady-his=she | ||||
| "she is the lady of the ruler of the country Egypt" | |||||||
Verbal morphology
The verbal morphology of Hurrian is extremely complex, but it is constructed only through the affixation of suffixes (indicated by '-') and cliticClitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
s (indicated by '='). Hurrian clitics stand for unique words, but are attached to other words as though they were suffixes. Transitivity
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
and intransitivity
Intransitivity
In mathematics, the term intransitivity is used for related, but different, properties of binary relations:- Intransitivity :A relation is transitive if, whenever it relates some A to some B, and that B to some C, it also relates that A to that C...
are clearly indicated in the morphology; only transitive verbs take endings that agree with the person and number of their subject. The direct object and intransitive subject, when they are not represented by an independent noun, are expressed through the use of clitics, or pronouns (see below). Moreover, suffixes can be added to the verb stem that modify its meaning, including valency
Valency (linguistics)
In linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate...
-changing morphemes such as -an(n)-- (causative
Causative
In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
), -ant (applicative
Applicative voice
The applicative voice is a grammatical voice which promotes an oblique argument of a verb to the object argument, and indicates the oblique role within the meaning of the verb. When the applicative voice is applied to a verb, its valency may be increased by one...
) and -ukar (reciprocative). The meanings of many such suffixes have yet to be decoded.
The "morpheme chain" of the verb is as follows: 1. Root; 2. Derivational suffixes; 3. Tense/Aspect suffixes; 4. Intransitivity (?) marker -t-; 5. Suffix -imbu- (function unclear); [5/6. Ergative third plural person suffix -it- (only in Old Hurrian);] 6. Valency
Valency (linguistics)
In linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate...
markers (intransitive/transitive/antipassive); 7. Negative suffixes; 8. Ergative person suffixes; 9. Ergative number suffixes; 10. Enclitic pronouns (in the absolutive case); 11. Enclitic particles (often with the meaning of conjunctions)
As with the noun, not all of these elements must be present in each verb form, and indeed some of them are mutually incompatible. The negative suffixes (7), the ergative person suffixes (8) and the ergative number suffixes (9) merge in ways which are not entirely predictable, so the person endings are usually listed in separate singular and plural versions.
Indicative mood
After the derivational suffix come those marking tenseGrammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
. The present tense
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
is unmarked, the preterite
Preterite
The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
is marked by -ōš and the future
Future tense
In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...
by ēt. The preterite and future suffixes also the suffix -t, which indicates intransitivity, but occurs only in truly intransitive forms, not in antipassive ones; in the present, this suffix never occurs. Another, separate, -t suffix is found in all tenses in transitive sentences – it indicates a 3rd person plural subject. In the indicative this suffix is mandatory, but in all other moods it is optional. Because these two suffixes are identical, ambiguous forms can occur; thus, unētta can mean "they will bring [something]" or "he/she/it will come", depending on the context.
After these endings come the vowel of transitivity. It is -a when the verb is intransitive, -i when the verb is in the antipassive and -o (in the Mitanni letter, -i) in transitive verbs. The suffix -o is dropped immediately after the derivational suffixes. In transitive verbs, the -o occurs only in the present, while in the other tenses transitivity is instead indicated by the presence (or absence) of the aforementioned -t suffixes.
In the next position, the suffix of negation can occur; in transitive sentences, it is -wa, whereas in intransitive and antipassive ones it is -kkV. Here, the V represents a repetition of the vowel that precedes the negative suffix, although when this is /a/, both vowels become /o/. When the negative suffix is immediately followed by a clitic pronoun (except for =nna), its vowel is /a/, regardless of the vowel that preceded it, e.g. mann-o-kka=til=an (be-intr-neg-1.pl.abs-and), "and we are not...". The following table gives the tense, transivity and negation markers:
| Transitivity | Present | Preterite | Future | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| intransitive | affirmative | -a | -ōšta | -ētta |
| negative | -okko | -ōštokko | -ēttokko | |
| antipassive | affirmative | -i | -ōši | -ēti |
| negative | -ikki | -ōšikki | -ētikki | |
| transitive without derivational suff. |
affirmative | Mari/Hattusha -o Mitanni -i |
Mari/Hattusha -ōšo Mitanni -ōši |
Mari/Hattusha -ēto Mitanni -ēti |
| negative | Mari/Hattusha -owa Mitanni -iwa |
Mari/Hattusha -ōšowa Mitanni -ōšiwa |
Mari/Hattusha -ētowa Mitanni -ētiwa |
|
| transitive with derivational suff. |
affirmative | -Ø | Mari/Hattusha -ōšo Mitanni -ōši |
Mari/Hattusha -ēto Mitanni -ēti |
| negative | -wa | Mari/Hattusha -ōšowa Mitanni -ōšiwa |
Mari/Hattusha -ētowa Mitanni -ētiwa |
After this, in transitive verbs, comes the subject marker. The following forms are found:
| 1st person singular |
1st person plural |
2nd person singular |
2nd person plural |
3rd person sing/pl |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| with -i (transitive) (only Mitanni) |
-af, -au |
-auša | -i-o | -*aššo, -*aššu |
-i-a |
| with -wa (negated) |
-uffu | -uffuš(a) | -wa-o | -uššu | -wa-a |
| with other morphemes (no merging) |
-...-af, -...-au |
-...-auša | -...-o | -...-aššo, -...-aššu |
-...-a |
The suffixes of the first person, both plural and singular, and the second person plural suffix merge together with the preceding suffixes -i and -wa. However, in the Mari and Hattusha dialects, the suffix of transitivity -o does not merge with other endings. The distinction between singular and plural in the third person is provided by the suffix -t, which comes directly after the tense marker. In the third person, when the suffix -wa occurs before the subject marker, it can be replaced by -ma, also expressing the negative: irnōhoš-i-ā-ma, (like-trans-3rd-neg) "He does not like [it]".
In the Old Hurrian of Hattusha the ending of the third person singular was -m. A third person plural ergative subject was marked with the suffix -it-, which, however, unlike the other ergative endings, occurred before instead of after the transitivity vowel: contrast uv-o-m "she slaughtered" with tun-it-o "they forced". In the intransitive and antipassive, there was also a subject marker, -p for the third person but unmarked for the others. It is unknown whether this suffix was also found on transitive objects.
If a verb form is nominalised, e.g. to create a relative clause
Relative clause
A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
, then another suffix is used: -šše. Nominalised verbs can undergo Suffixaufnahme. Verb forms can also take other enclitic suffixes; see 'particles' below.
Other moods
To express nuances of grammatical moodGrammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
, several special verb forms are used, which are derived from the indicative (non-modal) forms. Wishes and commands are formed with an optative system, whose principal characteristic is the element -i, which is attached directly to the verb stem. There is no difference between the form for transitive and intransitive verbs, there being agreement with the subject of the sentence. Tense markers are unchanged in the optative.
| Person/Number | Negation | Ending | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person Singular |
affirmative | -ile, after /l/ or /r/, -le and -re | "I want to..." |
| negative | -ifalli | "I do not want to..." | |
| 1st person Plural |
unattested | ||
| 2nd person Singular |
affirmative | -i, -e | "you will (imperative Imperative mood The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :... ) |
| negative | -ifa, -efa | "you will not..." | |
| 2nd person Plural |
affirmative | -i(š), -e(š) | "you will..." |
| negative | -ifa(š), -efa(š) | "you will not..." | |
| 3rd person Singular |
affirmative | -ien1 | "he/she/it can..." |
| negative | -ifaen1 | "he/she/it cannot..." | |
| 3rd person Plural |
affirmative | -iten1 | "may they..." |
| negative | -itfaen1 | "may they not..." | |
1 In the optative forms of the third person, the /n/ ending is present in the Mari/Hattusha dialect when the following word begins with a consonant.
The so-called final form, which is needed to express a purpose ("in order to"), is formed in conjunction with the 'with', and has different endings. In the singular, the suffixes -ae, -ai, -ilae and -ilai are found, which after /l/ and /r/ become -lae/-lai and -rae/rai respectively. In the plural the same endings are used, though sometimes the plural suffix -ša is found as well, bbut this is not always the case.
To express a possibility, the potential form must be used. For intransitive verbs, the ending is -ilefa or olefa (-lefa and -refa after /l,r/), which does not need to agree with the subject. Transitive potential forms are formed with -illet and -allet, which are suffixed to the normal endings of the transitive indicative forms. However, this form is only attested in Mitanni and only in the third person. The potential form is also occasionally used to express a wish.
The desiderative form is used to express an urgent request. It is also only found in the third person, and only with transitive verbs. The ending for the third person singular is -ilanni, and for the plural, -itanni.
Examples of finite verb forms
The following tables give examples of verb forms in various syntactic environments, largely from the Mitanni letter:| Ex. | Form | Gloss | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| (4) | koz-ōš-o | restrain-pret-2.sg | "You restrained" |
| (5) | pal-i-a-mā-šše=mān | know-trans-3rd-neg-nom=but | "..., but which he doesn't know" |
| (6) | pašš-ēt-i=t=ān šeniffuta | send-fut-antipass=1.sg.abs=and to.my.brother | "and I will send to my brother" |
| (7) | tiwēna tān-ōš-au-šše-na-Ø | the.things do-pret-1.sg-nom-art.pl-abs | "the things I've done" |
| (8) | ūr-i-uffu=nna=ān | want-trans-neg+1.sg=3.pl.abs=and | "and I don't want it" |
| (9) | itt-ōš-t-a | go-pret-intr-intr | "I went, you went, ..." |
| (10) | kul-le | say-opt.1.sg | "I want to say" |
| (11) | pašš-ien | send-opt.3.sg | "may he send" |
| (12) | pal-lae=n | know-final-3sg.abs | "so he knows" |
| (13) | kepānol-lefa=tta=ān | send-pot=1.sg.abs=and | "and I might send" |
Infinitive verb forms
Infinitive forms of the verb in Hurrian include both nominalised verbs (participles) and a more conventional infinitiveInfinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
. The first nominalised participle, the present participle, is characterised by the ending -iri or -ire, e.g. pairi, "the one building, the builder", hapiri, "the one moving, the nomad". The second nominalised participle, the perfect participle, is formed with the ending -aure, and is only attested once, in Nuzi: hušaure, "the bound one". Another special form is only found in the dialect of Hattusha. It can only be formed from transitive verbs, and it specifies an agent of the first person. Its ending is -ilia, and this participle can undergo Suffixaufnahme.
| (14) | pailianeš šuḫnineš | ||
| pa-ilia-ne-š | šuḫni-ne-š | ||
| build-I.pret.part-art.sg-erg.sg | wall-art.sg-erg.sg | ||
| "the wall built by me" (here in the ergative, so a subject of a transitive verb) | |||
The infinitive, which can also be found nominalised, is formed with the suffix -umme, e.g. fahrumme, "to be good", "the state/property of being good"
Personal pronouns
Hurrian uses both enclitic and independent personal pronouns. The independent pronouns can occur in any case, whereas the enclitic ones represent only the absolutive. It is irrelevant to the meaning of the sentence to which word in the sentence the enclitic pronoun is attached, so it is often attached either to the first phrase or to the verb. The following table gives the attested forms of the personal pronouns, omitting those that cannot be determined.| Case | 1st Singular (I) |
2nd Singular (you) |
3rd Singular (he/she/it) |
1st Plural (we) |
2nd Plural (you) |
3rd Plural (they) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Absolutive (indep.) |
ište | fe | mane, manni | šattil, šattitil(la) | fella | manella |
| Absolutive (enclit.) |
-t(ta) | -m(ma) | -n(na), -me, -ma | -til(la) | -f(fa) | -l(la), -lle |
| Ergative | išaš | feš | manuš | šieš | fešuš | manšoš |
| Genitive | šofe | fefe | feše | |||
| Dative | šofa | fefa | šaša (?) | feša | manša | |
| Locative | feša (?) | |||||
| Allative | šuta | šašuta (?) | ||||
| Ablative | manutan | |||||
| Comitative | šura | manura | manšura, manšora | |||
| Equative II | šonna | manunna |
The variant forms -me, -ma and -lle of the third person absolutive pronouns only before certain conjunctions, namely ai (when), inna (when), inu, unu (who), panu (though), and the relative pronouns iya and iye. When an enclitic personal pronoun is attached to a noun, an extensive system of sound changes determines the final form. The enclitic -nna of the third person singular behaves differently from the other pronouns: when it is preceded by an ergative suffix it, unlike the other pronouns, combines with the suffix to form šša, whereas with all other pronouns the š of the ergative is dropped. Moreover, a word-final vowel /i/ changes to /e/ or /a/ when any enclitic pronoun other than -nna is attached.
Possessive pronouns
The Hurrian possessive pronounPossessive pronoun
A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that substitutes for a noun phrase that begins with a possessive determiner . For example, in the sentence These glasses are mine, not yours, the words mine and yours are possessive pronouns and stand for my glasses and your glasses, respectively...
s cannot occur independently, but are only enclitic. They are attached to nouns or nominalised verbs. The form of the pronoun is dependent on that of the following morpheme. The table below outlines the possible forms:
| Fall | 1st Singular (my) |
2nd Singular (your) |
3rd Singular (his/her/its) |
1st Plural (our) |
2nd Plural (your) |
3rd Plural (their) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| word-finally | -iffe | -f | -i | -iffaš | -šše | -yaš |
| before consonants (except /f,w/) | -iffu | -fu | -i | -iffaš | -šu | -yaš |
| before vowels and /f,w/ | -iff | -f | -i | -iffaš | n. bel. | -yaš |
The final vowel of the noun stem is dropped before an attached possessive pronoun, e.g. šeniffe ("my brother", from šena "brother"). It remains, however, when a consonant-initial pronoun is atached: attaif ("your father", from attai, "father")
Other pronouns
Hurrian also has several demonstrative pronouns: anni (this), anti/ani (that), akki...aki (one...the other). The final vowel /i/ of these pronouns is retained only in the absolutive, becoming /u/ in all other cases, e.g. akkuš "the one" (erg.), antufa ("to that [one]"). There are also the relative pronouns iya and iye. Both forms are free interchangeable. The pronoun has the function of the absolutive in the relative clause, and so represents an intransitive subject or a transitive object. The interrogative pronoun (who/what) is only attested in the ergative singular (afeš), and once in the absolutive singular (au).Adpositions
Hurrian contains many idiomatic expressions that denote spatial and abstract relations and serve as adpositionAdposition
Prepositions are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles...
s, most of them built on the dative and genitive cases. They are almost exclusively postpositions – only one preposition (āpi + dative, "for"), is attested in the texts from Hattusha. All adpositions can themselves generally be in the allative, rarely in the dative or in the "e-case".
Some examples: N-fa āyita or N-fenē āyē (in the presence of; from āyi "face"). N-fa etīta or N-fa etīfa (for, because of; from eti "body, person"), N-fenē etiyē (concerning), N-fa furīta (in sight of; from furi, "sight, look"), and only in Hattusha N-fa āpita (in front of; from āpi, "front"). Besides these, there is ištani "space between," which is used with a plural possessive pronoun and the locative, for "between us/you/them", e.g. ištaniffaša (between us, under us).
Conjunctions and adverbs
Only a few sentence-initial particles are attested. In contract with nouns, which also end in /i/, the final vowel of the conjunctions ai (when) and anammi (therefore) is not dropped before an enclitic personal pronoun. Other conjunctions include alaše (if), inna (when), inu (like) and panu (although). Hurrian has only a small amount of adverbs. The temporal adverbs are henni (now), kuru (again) and unto (then). Also attested are atī (thus, so) and tiššan (very).Enclitic particles
The enclitic particles can be attached to any word in a sentence, but most often they are attached to the first phrase of the sentence or to the verb. They are much more diverse and frequent in the Mitanni letter than in Old Hurrian. Common ones include =ān (and), =mān (but), =mmaman (to be sure) and =nīn (truly!).| (15) | atīnīn mānnattamān | ||
| atī=nīn | mānn-a=tta=mān | ||
| so=truly | be-intr=1.sg.abs=but | ||
| "But I really am thus" | |||
Numbers
In addition to the irregular number word šui (every), all the cardinal numbersNames of numbers in English
English numerals are words for numbers used in English-speaking cultures.-Cardinal numbers: Cardinal numbers refer to the size of a group....
from 1 to 10 as well as a few higher ones are attested. Ordinal numbers
Ordinal number (linguistics)
In linguistics, ordinal numbers are the words representing the rank of a number with respect to some order, in particular order or position . Its use may refer to size, importance, chronology, etc...
are formed with the suffix -(š)še or ši, which becomes -ze or -zi after /n/. The following table gives an overview of the numeral system:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 13 or 30 | 17 or 70 | 18 or 80 | 10000 | 30000 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardinal number |
šukko, šuki |
šini | kike | tumni | nariya | šeše | šinti | kiri, kira |
tamri | ēmani | kikmani | šintimani | kirmani | nupi | kike nupi |
| Ordinal number |
unattested | šinzi | kiški | tumnušše | narišše | unattested | šintišše | unattested | unattested | ēmanze | unattested | unattested | kirmanze | unattested | unattested |
Distributive numbers carry the suffix -ate, e.g. kikate (by threes), tumnate (by fours). The suffix -āmha denotes multiplicatives, e.g. šināmha (twice), ēmanāmha (thrice). All cardinal numbers end in a vowel, which drops when an enclitic is attached.
Syntax
The normal word order of a Hurrian sentence is SOV. Within noun phraseNoun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s, the noun regularly comes at the end. Adjectives, numbers, and genitive modifiers come before the noun they modify. Relative clause
Relative clause
A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
s, however, tend to surround the noun, which means that the noun the relative clause modifies stands in the middle of the relative clause. Hurrian has at its disposal several paradigms for constructing relative clauses. It can either use the relative pronouns iya and iye, which has already been described under 'pronouns' above, or the nominalising suffix -šše attached to a verb, which undergoes Suffixaufnahme. The third possibility is for both these markers to occur (see example 16 below). The noun, which is represented by the relative clause, can take any case, but within the relative clause can only have the function of the absolutive, i.e. it can only be the subject of an intransitive relative clause or the object of a transitive one.
| (16) | iyallānīn šēniffuš tiwēna tānōšāššena | ||||||
| iya=llā=nīn | šēn-iffu-š | tiwē-na-Ø | tān-ōš-ā-šše-na-Ø | ||||
| rel.pron=3.pl.abs=truly | brother-my-erg.sg | object-art.pl-abs | send-pret-3.sg.subj-nom-art.pl-abs | ||||
| "those, which my brother sent" | |||||||
As has been outlined above, Hurrian transitive verbs normally take a subject in the ergative and an object in the absolutive (except for the antipassive constructions, where these are replaced by the absolutive and the essive respectively). The indirect object of ditransitive verbs, however, can be in the dative, locative, allative, or with some verbs also in the absolutive.
| (17) | olaffa katulle | ||
| ola-Ø=ffa | katul-le | ||
| other-abs=2.pl.abs | say-opt.1.sg | ||
| 'I want to tell youabs something elseabs“ | |||
Vocabulary
The attested Hurrian lexicon is quite homogenous, containing only a small number of loanwords (e.g. tuppi (clay tablet), Mizri (Egypt) both from AkkadianAkkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
). The relative pronouns iya and iye may be a loan from the Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
language of the Mitanni people who had lived in the region before the Hurrians; cf. Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
ya. Conversely, Hurrian gave many loan words to the nearby Akkadian dialects, for example hāpiru (nomad) from the Hurrian hāpiri (nomad). There may also be Hurrian loanwords among the languages of the Caucasus
Languages of the Caucasus
The languages of the Caucasus are a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea....
, but this cannot be verified, as there are no written records of Caucasian languages from the time of the Hurrians. The source language of similar sounding words is thus unconfirmable.
Sample text
Untomān iyallēnīn tiwēna šūallamān šēniffuš katōšāššena ūriāššena, antillān ēmanāmḫa tānōšau. (aus dem Mitanni-Brief, Kolumne IV, Zeilen 30-32)| Word in morphemes | Grammatical analysis |
|---|---|
| unto=mān | now = but |
| iya=llē=nīn | relative.pronoun = 3.plural.absolutive = truly |
| tiwē-na-Ø | thing-article.plural-absolutive |
| šū-a=lla=mān | every-locative=3.plural.absolutive=but |
| šēn-iffu-š | brother-my-ergative.singular |
| kat-ōš-ā-šše-na-Ø | say-preterite.transitive-3.singular.subject-nominaliser-article.plural-absolutive |
| ūr-i-ā-šše-na-Ø | want-transitive-3.singular.subject-nominaliser-article.plural-absolutive |
| anti=lla=an | those=plural.absolutive=and |
| ēman-āmḫa | ten-multiplicative |
| tān-ōš-au | do-preterite.transitive-1.singular.subject |
Translation: "Those things, which my brother truly said and wanted as a whole, now I have done them, but tenfold."
Hurrian literature
Texts in the Hurrian language itself have been found at HattusaHattusa
Hattusa was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age. It was located near modern Boğazkale, Turkey, within the great loop of the Kızıl River ....
, Ugarit
Ugarit
Ugarit was an ancient port city in the eastern Mediterranean at the Ras Shamra headland near Latakia, Syria. It is located near Minet el-Beida in northern Syria. It is some seven miles north of Laodicea ad Mare and approximately fifty miles east of Cyprus...
(Ras Shamra), and Sapinuwa
Sapinuwa
Sapinuwa was a Bronze Age Hittite city at the location of modern Ortaköy in Turkey. It was one of the major Hittite religious and administrative centres, a military base and an occasional residence of several Hittite kings...
(but unpublished). Also, one of the longest of the Amarna letters
Amarna letters
The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom...
is Hurrian; written by King Tushratta
Tushratta
Tushratta was a king of Mitanni at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the reign of Akhenaten -- approximately the late 14th century BC. He was the son of Shuttarna II...
of Mitanni to Pharaoh Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died...
. It was the only long Hurrian text known until a multi-tablet collection of literature in Hurrian with a Hittite
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
translation was discovered at Hattusas in 1983.
Important finds were made at Ortaköy
Ortaköy, Çorum
Ortaköy is a town and district of Çorum Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey, located at 57 km from the city of Çorum. The mayor is Ali Ergin .-Archaeological sites:...
(Sapinuwa) in the 1990s, including several bilinguals. Most of them remain unedited as of 2007.
No Hurrian texts are attested from the first millennium BC (unless one wants to consider Urartian a late Hurrian dialect), but scattered loanwords persist in Assyrian, such as the goddess Savuska mentioned by Sargon II
Sargon II
Sargon II was an Assyrian king. Sargon II became co-regent with Shalmaneser V in 722 BC, and became the sole ruler of the kingdom of Assyria in 722 BC after the death of Shalmaneser V. It is not clear whether he was the son of Tiglath-Pileser III or a usurper unrelated to the royal family...
.
See also
- Indo-Aryan superstrate in MitanniIndo-Aryan superstrate in MitanniSome theonyms, proper names and other terminology of the Mitanni exhibit an Indo-Aryan superstrate, suggesting that an Indo-Aryan elite imposed itself over the Hurrian population in the course of the Indo-Aryan expansion....
- Black SpeechBlack SpeechThe Black Speech is a fictional language created by J. R. R. Tolkien.One of the languages of Arda in Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, it was spoken in the realm of Mordor...
Further reading
- Speiser, E. A. (1941). Introduction to Hurrian. New Haven: Pub. by the American schools of Oriental research under the Jane Dows Nies publication fund.
- Wegner, I., Hurritisch, eine Einführung, Harassowitz (2000), ISBN 3-447-04262-1.