Luwian (sometimes spelled
Luvian) is an extinct language of the
Anatolian branchThe Anatolian languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages, which were spoken in Asia Minor, the best attested of them being the Hittite language.-Origins:...
of the
Indo-EuropeanThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
language familyA language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics...
. Luwian is closely related to
HittiteHittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
, and was among the languages spoken by population groups in
ArzawaArzawa was the name of a region or kingdom in Western Anatolia, which later to be known as Lydia in the post-Hittite era. It was the western neighbour and sometimes vassal of the Hittites, and probably bordered on the Assuwa league to the north...
, to the west or southwest of the core
HittiteThe Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height ca...
area. In the oldest texts, eg. the
Hittite CodeThe Hittite laws have been preserved on a number of Hittite cuneiform tablets found at Hattusa . Copies have been found written in Old Hittite as well as in Middle and Late Hittite, indicating that they had validity throughout the duration of the Hittite Empire The Hittite laws have been preserved...
, the Luwian-speaking areas including Arzawa and
KizzuwatnaKizzuwatna is the name of an ancient Anatolian kingdom in the second millennium BC. It was situated in the highlands of southeastern Anatolia, near the Gulf of İskenderun in modern-day Turkey. It encircled the Taurus Mountains and the Ceyhan river. The center of the kingdom was the city of...
were called
Luwia. In the post-Hittite era, the region of Arzawa came to be known as
LydiaLydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....
(Assyrian
Luddu, Greek Λυδία).
Luwian is either the direct ancestor of
LycianLycian language refers to the inscriptional language of ancient Lycia, populated by Lycians, as well as its presumed spoken counterpart.-The speakers:...
, or a close relative of the ancestor of Lycian.
Luwian (sometimes spelled
Luvian) is an extinct language of the
Anatolian branchThe Anatolian languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages, which were spoken in Asia Minor, the best attested of them being the Hittite language.-Origins:...
of the
Indo-EuropeanThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
language familyA language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics...
. Luwian is closely related to
HittiteHittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
, and was among the languages spoken by population groups in
ArzawaArzawa was the name of a region or kingdom in Western Anatolia, which later to be known as Lydia in the post-Hittite era. It was the western neighbour and sometimes vassal of the Hittites, and probably bordered on the Assuwa league to the north...
, to the west or southwest of the core
HittiteThe Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height ca...
area. In the oldest texts, eg. the
Hittite CodeThe Hittite laws have been preserved on a number of Hittite cuneiform tablets found at Hattusa . Copies have been found written in Old Hittite as well as in Middle and Late Hittite, indicating that they had validity throughout the duration of the Hittite Empire The Hittite laws have been preserved...
, the Luwian-speaking areas including Arzawa and
KizzuwatnaKizzuwatna is the name of an ancient Anatolian kingdom in the second millennium BC. It was situated in the highlands of southeastern Anatolia, near the Gulf of İskenderun in modern-day Turkey. It encircled the Taurus Mountains and the Ceyhan river. The center of the kingdom was the city of...
were called
Luwia. In the post-Hittite era, the region of Arzawa came to be known as
LydiaLydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....
(Assyrian
Luddu, Greek Λυδία).
Luwian is either the direct ancestor of
LycianLycian language refers to the inscriptional language of ancient Lycia, populated by Lycians, as well as its presumed spoken counterpart.-The speakers:...
, or a close relative of the ancestor of Lycian. Luwian is also one of the likely candidates for the language spoken by the
TrojansTroy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer...
, alongside a possible Tyrrhenian language related to
LemnianThe Lemnian language is a language of the 6th century BC spoken on the island of Lemnos. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia. However, fragments of inscriptions on local pottery show that it was spoken there by...
.
From this homeland, Luwian speakers gradually spread through Anatolia and became a contributing factor to the downfall, after circa 1180 BC, of the Hittite Empire, where it was already widely spoken. Luwian was also the language spoken in the
Neo-HittiteThe states that are called Neo-Hittite, or more recently Syro-Hittite, were Luwian, Aramaic and Phoenician-speaking political entities of Iron Age northern Syria and southern Anatolia that arose following the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1180 BC and lasted until roughly 700 BC...
states of
SyriaSyria , 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....
, such as
MilidMelid was a Hittite city at the Tohma River, the ancient name of a tributary of the upper Euphrates rising in the Taurus Mountains.-History:...
and
CarchemishCarchemish was an important ancient city of the Mitanni and Hittite empires, now on the frontier between Turkey and Syria. It was the location of an important battle between the Babylonians and Egyptians, mentioned in the Bible...
, as well as in the central Anatolian kingdom of
TabalTabal was a Luwian speaking Neo-Hittite kingdom of South Central Anatolia, forming after the collapse of the Hittite Empire and surviving into Roman times....
that flourished around 900 BC.
Luwian has been preserved in two forms, named after the writing systems used to represent them: Cuneiform Luwian, and Hieroglyphic Luwian.
Cuneiform Luwian
CuneiformCuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
Luwian is the form of the Luwian language attested in the tablet archives of
HattusaHattusa was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age...
; it is essentially the same
cuneiform writing systemCuneiform script is the earliest known writing system in the world. Cuneiform writing emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC during the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing...
used in
HittiteHittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
. In Laroche's Catalog of Hittite Texts, its corpus runs from CTH 757-773, mostly comprising rituals.
Hieroglyphic Luwian
Hieroglyphic Luwian is a form of Luwian written in a native script, known as
Anatolian hieroglyphsAnatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenous logographic script native to central Anatolia, consisting of some 500 signs. They were once commonly known as Hittite hieroglyphs, but the language they encode proved to be Luwian, not Hittite, and the term Luwian hieroglyphs is used in English publications...
. Once thought to be a variety of the
Hittite languageHittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
,
"Hieroglyphic Hittite" was formerly used to refer to the language of the same inscriptions, but this term is now obsolete. The first report of a monumental inscription dates to 1850, when an inhabitant of
NevşehirNevşehir, formerly Muşkara, is a city and the capital district of Nevşehir Province in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. According to the 2000 census, population of the district is 105,078 of which 67,864 live in the city of Nevşehir...
reported the relief at Fraktin. In 1870, antiquarian travellers in
AleppoAleppo is a city in northern Syria, the second largest Syrian city and the capital of the Aleppo Governorate; the Governorate extends around the city for over 16,000 km² and has a population of 4,393,000, making it the largest Governorate in Syria by population...
found another inscription built into the south wall of the el-Qiqan Mosque. In 1884 Polish scholar Maryan Sokolowski discovered an inscription near Köylütolu, western
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
. The largest known inscription was excavated in 1970 in Yalburt, northwest of
KonyaKonya is a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the capital of the Konya Province, and had a city population of 980,973 in 2008 while the provincial population was 1,959,082 in the same year.-Etymology:Konya, also spelled in some historic English texts as Konia or Koniah, was known...
. Luwian in its hieroglyphic stage could have been influenced from Hittite and perhaps also
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
, which had spread to Late Minoan II Crete by the 15th century BC.
Relationship to preceding languages
Luwian has numerous archaisms, and so is important both to
Indo-EuropeanThe Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The existence of such a language has been accepted by linguists for over a century, and there have been many attempts at reconstruction...
linguists and to students of the Bronze Age Aegean.
Craig MelchertH. Craig Melchert is a linguist known particularly for his work on the Anatolian branch of Indo-European. He received his B.A. in German from Michigan State University in 1967 and his Ph.D. in Linguistics from Harvard University in 1977. From 1968 to 1972 he served in the United States Air Force,...
in
Studies in Memory of Warren Cowgill (1987; pp 182–204) used Luwian to support the controversial idea that the
Proto-Indo-European languageThe Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The existence of such a language has been accepted by linguists for over a century, and there have been many attempts at reconstruction...
had three distinct sets of
velar consonantVelars 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)....
s:
- plain velars
- palatovelars
- labiovelars
For Melchert, PIE > Luwian
z (probably [ts]); *k >
k; and *kʷ >
ku (probably [kʷ]).
Luwian has also been enlisted for its verb
kaluti, which means "turn" or "circle". Many linguists claim that this derives from a proto-Anatolian word for "
wheelA wheel is a circular device that is capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation whilst supporting a load , or performing labour in machines. Common examples are found in transport applications. A wheel, together with an axle overcomes friction by facilitating motion by...
", which in turn would have derived from the common word for "wheel" found in all other Indo-European families. The wheel was invented in the 5th millennium BCE and, if
kaluti does derive from it, then the Anatolian branch left PIE after its invention (so validating the
Kurgan hypothesisThe Kurgan hypothesis is one of the proposals about early Indo-European origins, which postulates that the people of an archaeological "Kurgan culture" in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language...
as applicable to Anatolian). However
kaluti need not imply a concrete wheel, and so need not have derived from a PIE word with that meaning. The IE words for a wheel may well have arisen in those other IE languages after the Anatolian split.
Non-Indo-European survivals in Luwian
In addition, Luwian and its descendants in general reflect survivals of a non-
Indo-EuropeanThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
type in western Anatolia. Where Hittite, with some Hieroglyphic Luwian and
PalaicPalaic is an extinct Indo-European language, attested in cuneiform tablets in Bronze Age Hattusa. Its name in Hittite is palaumnili, or "of the people of Pala"; Pala was probably to the northwest of the Hittite core area, so in the northwest of present mainland Turkey...
texts, allow the classically Indo-European suffix
-as for the singular genitive and
-an for the plural genitive, the "canonical" Luwian as used in cuneiform (with some Palaic rituals) employed instead an adjectival suffix
-assa. Given the prevalence of
-assa place-names and words scattered around all sides of the
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
, this suffix is considered evidence of a shared non-Indo-European language or at the very least an Aegean
SprachbundA Sprachbund , from the German word for “language union”, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated,...
preceding the arrivals of Luwians and
GreeksThe Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in diaspora communities around the world....
. This feature of Cuneiform Luwian may have been a deliberate archaism, to emphasise their roots in that land; or else the Luwians may have genuinely forgotten the Indo-European genitive only to pick it up later for Hieroglyphic Luwian.
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