Anatolian languages
| Anatolian | |
|---|---|
| Ethnicity: | Anatolians |
| Geographic distribution: |
formerly in Anatolia |
| Linguistic classification: |
Indo-European
|
| Proto-language: | Proto-Anatolian |
| Subdivisions: | |
| ISO 639-5: | |
| Glottolog: | anat1257 |
The Anatolian languages are an extinct family of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Asia Minor (ancient Anatolia), the best attested of them being the Hittite language.
The list below gives the Anatolian languages in a relatively flat arrangement, following a summary of the Anatolian family tree by Robert Beekes (2010). This model recognizes only one clear subgroup, the Luwic languages. Modifications and updates of the branching order continue, however. A second version opposes Hittite to Western Anatolian, and divides the latter node into Lydian, Palaic and a Luwian Group (instead of Luwic).
Hittite (nešili) was the language of the Hittite Empire, dated approximately 1650 to 1200 BC, which ruled over nearly all of Anatolia during that time. The earliest sources of Hittite are the 19th century BC Kültepe texts, the Assyrian records of the kârum kaneš, or "port of Kanesh," an Assyrian enclave of merchants within the city of kaneš (Kültepe). This collection records Hittite names and words loaned into Assyrian from Hittite. The Hittite name for the city was Neša, from which the Hittite endonym for the language, Nešili, was derived. The facts that the enclave was Assyrian, rather than Hittite, and that the city name became the language name, suggest that the Hittites were already in a position of influence, perhaps dominance, in central Anatolia.
The main cache of Hittite texts is the approximately 30,000 clay tablet fragments, of which only some have been studied, from the records of the royal city of Hattuša, located on a ridge near what is now Boğazkale, Turkey, formerly named Boğazköy. The records show a gradual rise to power of the Anatolian language speakers over the native Hattians, until at last the kingship became an Anatolian privilege. From then on, little is heard of the Hattians, but the Hittites kept the name. The records include rituals, medical writings, letters, laws and other public documents, making possible an in-depth knowledge of many aspects of the civilization.
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