Luwian language

Luwian (sometimes spelled Luvian) is an extinct part of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Luwian is closely related to Hittite, and was among the languages spoken by population groups in Arzawa, to the west or southwest of the core Hittite area. In the oldest texts that area was referred to as Luwia. Much later, this same area came to be known as Lydia (or Ludia). It is either the direct ancestor of Lycian or a close relative of the ancestor of Lycian. Luwian is the most likely candidate for the language spoken by the Trojans.

From this homeland, Luwian speakers gradually spread eastward through Anatolia and became a contributing factor to the downfall of the Hittite Empire, where it also seems to have been widely spoken by this time. Luwian was also the language of the Neo-Hittite states of Syria such as Milid and Carchemish, and also of the central Anatolian kingdom of Tabal that flourished around 900 AD.

Relationship to preceding languages

Luwian has numerous archaisms, and so is important both to Indo-European linguists and to students of the Bronze Age Aegean.

Craig Melchert in Studies in Memory of Warren Cowgill (1987; pp 182–204) used Luwiyan to propose that the Proto-Indo-European language had three distinct sets of velar consonants:

palatovelars
plain velars
labiovelars

For Melchert, PIE *ḱ > Luwian z (probably *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 "wheel", 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 and, if kaluti does derive from it, then the Anatolian branch left PIE after its invention (so validating the Kurgan hypothesis 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.

In addition, Luwian and its descendents in general reflect survivals of a non-Indo-European type in western Anatolia. Where Hittite, with some Hieroglyphic Luwian and Palaic language texts, allow for 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 Sea, this suffix is considered evidence of a shared non-Indo-European language or at the very least an Aegaean Sprachbund preceding the arrivals of Luwians and Greeks.

Varieties of Luwian

Luwian has been preserved in two forms named after the writing systems used to represent them, Cuneiform Luwian and Hieroglyphic Luwian.

Cuneiform Luwian

Cuneiform Luwian is the form of the Luwian language attested in the tablet archives of Hattusa; it is essentially the same writing system as Hittite. In Laroche's Catalog of Hittite Texts, its corpus runs from CTH 757-773, mostly comprising rituals. Luwian and its descendents in general reflect survivals of a non-Indo-European type in western Anatolia; but in Cuneiform they do so more defensively. Hieroglyphic Luwian and the Palaic language allow for the classically Indo-European suffix -as for the singular genitive and -an for the plural genitive; and also for an adjectival suffix -assa. Cuneiform Luwian uses the latter exclusively. 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.

Hieroglyphic Luwian

Anatolian hieroglyphs are also used to write Luwian. Formerly thought to be a variety of the Hittite language, "Hieroglyphic Hittite" was 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 Nevsehir reported the relief at Fratkin. In 1870, antiquarian travellers in Aleppo found one built into the south wall of the el-Qiqan Mosque. In 1884m Polish scholar Maryan Sokolowski discovered an inscription near Köylütolu, western Turkey. The largest known inscription was excavated in 1970 in Yalburt, northwest of Konya.

Luwian and its descendents in general reflect survivals of a non-Indo-European type in western Anatolia. Hieroglyphic Luwian and the Palaic language allow for the classically Indo-European suffix -as for the singular genitive and -an for the plural genitive; and also for an adjectival suffix -assa. Hittite used the former exclusively, and Cuneiform Luwian used the latter exclusively. Luwian in its Hieroglyphic stage could have been influenced from Hittite and perhaps also Greek, which had spread to Crete by the 15th century BC ("Late Minoan II").

References

Melchert, H. Craig. "PIE velars in Luvian." In Studies in memory of Warren Cowgill (1929–1985): Papers from the Fourth East Coast Indo-European Conference, Cornell University, June 6–9, 1985, ed. C. Watkins, 182–204. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987.
Melchert, H. Craig. Anatolian Historical Phonology. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994.
Melchert, H. Craig (ed). The Luwians. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003. ISBN 9004130098.
Otten, Heinrich. Zur grammatikalischen und lexikalischen Bestimmung des Luvischen. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1953.
Rosenkranz, Bernhard. Beiträge zur Erforschung des Luvischen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1952.
Starke, Frank. Die keilschrift-luwischen Texte in Umschrift (StBoT 30, 1985)
Starke, Frank. Untersuchungen zur Stammbildung des keilschrift-luwischen Nomens (StBoT 30, 1990)
Woudhuizen, Fred. The Language of the Sea Peoples. Amsterdam: Najade Pres, 1992.

External links

Anatolian languages | Ancient languages | Extinct languages of Asia | Hittite Empire