Luwian language
It has been suggested that Hieroglyphic Luwian be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since April 2024. |
Luwian | |
---|---|
Neo-Hittite kingdoms | |
Region | Anatolia (Turkey), Northern Syria |
Ethnicity | Luwians |
Extinct | around 600 BC |
Early forms | |
Cuneiform Luwian | |
hlu Hieroglyphic Luwian | |
Glottolog | luvi1235 |
Distribution of the Luwian language | |
Luwian (/ˈluːwiən/), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from Luwiya (also spelled Luwia or Luvia) – the name of the region in which the Luwians lived. Luwiya is attested, for example, in the Hittite laws.[1]
The two varieties of Proto-Luwian or Luwian (in the narrow sense of these names) are known after the scripts in which they were written: Cuneiform Luwian (CLuwian) and Hieroglyphic Luwian (HLuwian). There is no consensus as to whether these were a single language or two closely related languages.
Classification
Several other Anatolian languages – particularly
As Luwian has numerous archaisms, it is regarded as important to the study of
Geographic and chronological distribution
Luwian was among the languages spoken during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC by groups in central and western Anatolia and northern
A number of scholars in the past attempted to argue for the Luwian homeland in western Anatolia. According to James Mellaart, the earliest Indo-Europeans in northwest Anatolia were the horse-riders who came to this region from the north and founded Demircihöyük (Eskişehir Province) in Phrygia c. 3000 BC. They were allegedly ancestors of the Luwians who inhabited Troy II, and spread widely in the Anatolian peninsula.[10] He cited the distribution of a new type of wheel-made pottery, Red Slip Wares, as some of the best evidence for his theory. According to Mellaart, the proto-Luwian migrations to Anatolia came in several distinct waves over many centuries. The recent detailed review of Mellaart's claims suggests that his ethnolinguistic conclusions cannot be substantiated on archaeological grounds.[11]
Other arguments were advanced for the extensive Luwian presence in western Anatolia in the late second millennium BC. In the
Script and dialects
Luwian was split into many dialects, which were written in two different writing systems. One of these was the Cuneiform Luwian which used the form of Old Babylonian cuneiform that had been adapted for the Hittite language. The other was Hieroglyphic Luwian, which was written in a unique native hieroglyphic script. The differences between the dialects are minor, but they affect vocabulary, style, and grammar. The different orthographies of the two writing systems may also hide some differences.[19]
Cuneiform Luwian
Cuneiform Luwian | |
---|---|
luwili | |
Region | Anatolia |
Ethnicity | Luwians |
Extinct | around 600 BC |
Early forms | |
Cuneiform | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | xlu |
xlu | |
Glottolog | cune1239 |
Compared to cuneiform Hittite, logograms (signs with a set symbolic value) are rare. Instead, most writing is done with the syllabic characters, where a single symbol stands for a vowel, or a consonant-vowel pair (either VC or CV). A striking feature is the consistent use of 'full-writing' to indicate long vowels, even at the beginning of words. In this system a long vowel is indicated by writing it twice. For example, īdi "he goes" is written i-i-ti rather than i-ti, and ānda "in" is written a-an-ta rather than an-ta.
Hieroglyphic Luwian
Hieroglyphic Luwian is the corpus of Luwian texts written in a native script, known as Anatolian hieroglyphs.[24][25] Once thought to be a variety of the Hittite language, "Hieroglyphic Hittite" was formerly used to refer to the language of the same inscriptions, but this term is now obsolete. The dialect of Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions appears to be either Empire Luwian or its descendant, Iron Age Luwian.
The first report of a monumental inscription dates to 1850, when an inhabitant of
Phonology
The reconstruction of the Luwian phoneme inventory is based mainly on the written texts and comparisons with the known development of other Indo-European languages. Two series of stops can be identified, one transliterated as geminate in the cuneiform script. These fortis and lenis stops may have been distinguished by either voicing or gemination. The contrast was lost initially and finally, suggesting that any voicing only appeared intervocalically.[27]
The following table provides a minimal consonant inventory, as can be reconstructed from the script. The existence of other consonants, which were not differentiated in writing, is possible.
Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | fortis | *m: ⟨mm⟩ | *n: ⟨nn⟩ | |||
lenis | *m ⟨m⟩ | *n ⟨n⟩ | ||||
Plosive
|
fortis | *p ⟨pp⟩ | *t ⟨tt⟩ | *k ⟨kk⟩ | ||
lenis | *b ⟨p⟩ | *d ⟨t⟩ | *ɡ ⟨k⟩ | |||
Fricative
|
fortis | *s ⟨šš⟩ | *x~χ ⟨ḫḫ⟩ | |||
lenis | *z ⟨š⟩ | *ɣ~ʁ ⟨ḫ⟩ | ||||
Affricate
|
fortis | *t͡s ⟨zz⟩ | ||||
lenis | *d͡z ⟨z⟩ | |||||
Trill | *r | |||||
Approximant
|
*w | *l | *j |
There are only three
The characters that are transliterated as -h- and -hh- have often been interpreted as pharyngeal fricatives [ħ] and [ʕ]. However, they may have instead been uvular [χ] and [ʁ] or
In transcriptions of Luwian cuneiform, š is traditionally distinguished from s, since they were originally distinct signs for two different sounds, but in Luwian, both signs probably represented the same s sound.
A noteworthy phonological development in Luwian is
Morphology
Nouns
There were two grammatical genders: animate and inanimate/neuter. There are two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. Some animate nouns could also take a collective plural in addition to the regular numerical plural.
Luwian had six cases:
- nominative
- genitive
- locative
- accusative
- ablative/instrumental
- vocative
The vocative case occurs rarely in surviving texts and only in the singular.
Case | Singular | Plural |
---|---|---|
Nominative animate | -s | -anzi, -inzi |
Accusative animate | -n, -an | |
Nominative/accusative inanimate | -Ø, -n | -a, -aya |
Genitive | -s, -si | – |
Dative/locative | -i, -iya, -a | -anza |
Ablative/instrumental | -ati |
In the animate gender, an -i- is inserted between the stem and the case ending. In hieroglyphic Luwian, the particle -sa/-za is added to the nominative/accusative inanimate case ending. In the genitive case, cuneiform and hieroglyphic Luwian differ sharply from each other. In cuneiform Luwian the possessive suffix -assa is used for the genitive singular and -assanz- is used for the genitive plural. In hieroglyphic Luwian, as in Hittite, the classical Indo-European suffixes -as for the genitive singular and -an for the plural are used.[29] The special form of possessive adjectives with a plural possessor is restricted to Kizzuwatna Luwian and probably represents a calque from Hurrian.[30]
Because of the prevalence of -assa place names and words scattered around all sides of the Aegean Sea, the possessive suffix was sometimes considered evidence of a shared non-Indo-European language or an Aegean Sprachbund preceding the arrivals of Luwians and Greeks. It is, however, possible to account for the Luwian possessive construction as a result of case attraction in the Indo-European noun phrase.[31]
Adjective
Case | Singular | Plural |
---|---|---|
Nominative animate | -asis | -asinzi |
Accusative animate | -asin | |
Nominative/accusative inanimate | -asanza | -asa |
Dative/locative | -asan | -asanza |
Ablative/instrumental | -asati |
Adjectives agree with nouns in number and gender. Forms for the nominative and the accusative differ only in the animate gender and even then, only in the singular. For the sake of clarity, the table includes only the endings beginning with -a, but endings can also begin with an -i. The forms are largely derived from the forms of the nominal declension, with an -as- before the case ending that would be expected for nouns.
Pronouns
In addition to
Personal pronouns | Possessive pronouns | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
independent | enclitic | independent | ||
1st person | singular | amu, mu | -mu, -mi | ama- |
plural | anzas, anza | -anza | anza- | |
2nd person | singular | tu, ti | -tu, -ti | tuwa- |
plural | unzas, unza | -manza | unza- | |
3rd person | singular | (apa-) | -as, -ata, -an, -du | apasa- |
plural | (apa-) | -ata, -manza | apasa- |
Possessive pronouns and demonstrative pronouns in apa- are declined as adjectives. All known forms of the personal pronouns are given, but it is not clear how their meanings differed or how they changed for different cases.
In addition to the forms given in the table, Luwian also had a demonstrative pronoun formed from the stem za-/zi-, but not all cases are known, and also a relative pronoun, which was declined regularly: kwis (nominative singular animate), kwin (accusative singular animate), kwinzi (nominative/accusative plural animate), kwati (ablative/instrumental singular), kwanza (dative/locative plural), kwaya (nominative/accusative plural inanimate). Some indefinite pronouns whose meanings are not entirely clear are also transmitted.
Verbs
Like many other Indo-European languages, Luwian distinguishes two numbers (singular and plural) and three
Present | Preterite | Imperative | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1st person | singular | -wi | -ha | – |
plural | -mina | -hana | – | |
2nd person | singular | -si, -tisa | -ta | Ø |
plural | -tani | -tan | -tanu | |
3rd person | singular | -ti(r), -i, -ia | -ta(r) | -tu(r) |
plural | -nti | -nta | -ntu |
The conjugation is very similar to the Hittite ḫḫi conjugation.
A single participle can be formed with the suffix -a(i)mma. It has a passive sense for transitive verbs and a stative sense for intransitive verbs. The infinitive ends in -una.
Syntax
The usual word order is
Various
The following example sentence demonstrates several common features of Luwian: a final verb, the particle chain headed by the conjunction a-, the quotative clitic -wa, and the preverb sarra adding directionality to the main verb awiha.
a=wa
and=QUOT
api-n
DEM-ABL
wattaniy-ati
land-ABL.PL
pihammi-s
glorified-NOM
sarra
over
awi-ha
come-1.SG
"And I came over glorified from those lands." (Karkamiš A11b+c, line 14)[32][33]
Vocabulary and texts
The known Luwian vocabulary consists mostly of words inherited from
The surviving corpus of Luwian texts consists principally of cuneiform ritual texts from the 16th and 15th centuries BC and monumental inscriptions in hieroglyphs. There are also some letters and economic documents. The majority of the hieroglyphic inscriptions derive from the 12th to 7th centuries BC, after the fall of the
Another source of Luwian are the hieroglyphic seals which date from the 16th to the 7th centuries BC. Seals from the time of the Hittite empire are often
History of research
After the decipherment of Hittite, cuneiform Luwian was recognised as a separate, but related language by Emil Forrer in 1919. Further progress in the understanding of the language came after the Second World War, with the publication and analysis of a larger number of texts. Important work in this period was produced by Bernhard Rosenkranz, Heinrich Otten and Emmanuel Laroche. An important advance came in 1985 with the reorganisation of the whole text-corpus by Frank Starke.
The decipherment and classification of Hieroglyphic Luwian was much more difficult. In the 1920s, there were a number of failed attempts. In the 1930s some individual logograms and syllabic signs were correctly identified. At this point the classification of the language was not yet clear and, since it was believed to be a form of Hittite, it was referred to as Hieroglyphic Hittite. After a break in research due to the Second World War, there was breakthrough in 1947 with the discovery and publication of a
In the 1970s, as a result of a fundamental revision of the readings of a large number of hieroglyphs by John David Hawkins, Anna Morpurgo Davies, and Günter Neumann, it became clear that both cuneiform and hieroglyphic texts recorded the same Luwian language. This revision resulted from a discovery outside the area of Luwian settlement, namely the annotations on Urartian pots, written in the Urartian language using the hieroglyphic Luwian script. The sign , which had hitherto been read as ī was shown to be being used to indicate the sound za, which triggered a chain reaction resulting in an entirely new system of readings. Since that time, research has concentrated on better understanding the relationship between the two different forms of Luwian, in order to gain a clearer understanding of Luwian as a whole.
Trojan hypothesis
Luwian has been deduced as one of the likely candidates for the language spoken by the Trojans.[34]
After the 1995 finding of a Luwian biconvex seal at Troy VII, there has been a heated discussion over the language that was spoken in Homeric Troy. Frank Starke of the University of Tübingen demonstrated that the name of Priam, king of Troy at the time of the Trojan War, is connected to the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous".[35] "The certainty is growing that Wilusa/Troy belonged to the greater Luwian-speaking community," but it is not entirely clear whether Luwian was primarily the official language or it was in daily colloquial use.[36]
See also
Notes
- Code of the Nesilimsays, "If anyone steal a slave of a Luwian from the land of Luwia, and lead him here to the land of Hatti, and his master discover him, he shall take his slave only."
- ^ a b Anna Bauer, 2014, Morphosyntax of the Noun Phrase in Hieroglyphic Luwian, Leiden, Brill NV, pp. 9–10.
- ^ Melchert 2012, p. 14
- ^ Melchert 1987
- ^ Melchert 1993, p. 99
- ^ Melchert, p.c., reported in Rieken 2012, p. 5
- ^ Melchert 2003.
- ^ Yakubovich 2010:307
- ^ Melchert 2003, pp. 147–51
- ^ Christoph Bachhuber (2013), James Mellaart and the Luwians: A Culture-(Pre)history,
- ^ Christoph Bachhuber (2013), James Mellaart and the Luwians: A Culture-(Pre)history, p. 284
- ^ P. Widmer, "Mykenisch ru-wa-ni-jo 'Luwier'", Kadmos 45 (2007), 82–84, cited on Palaeolexicon: Word study tool of ancient languages,
- ^ Gander 2015: 474
- ^ See, e.g., Bryce in Melchert 2003:29–31; Singer 2005:435; Hawkins 2009:74.
- ^ Although Yakubovich (2010) has argued that a chain of scribal error and revision led to this substitution, and that Luwiya was not coterminous with Arzawa, but was further east in the area of the Konya Plain; see Yakubovich 2010:107–17.
- ^ Watkins 1994; id. 1995:144–51; Starke 1997; Melchert 2003; for the geography Hawkins 1998.
- ^ Hawkins 2013, p. 5, Gander 2017, p. 263, Matessi 2017, fn. 35
- ^ Beekes 2003; cf. Melchert 2008b:154.
- ^ Mouton, Alice and Yakubovich, Ilya. "Where did one speak luwili? Geographic and linguistic diversity of Luwian cuneiform texts". In: Journal of Language Relationship, vol. 19, no. 1-2, 2021, pp. 25–53. https://doi.org/10.1515/jlr-2021-191-208
- ^ Kloekhorst, Alwin. “Anatolian”. In: The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective. Edited by Thomas Olander. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. p. 64. doi:10.1017/9781108758666.005.
- ^ Luwian cuneiform texts are collected in Starke 1985
- ^ Laroche 1971, pp. 35–9
- ^ Yakubovich 2010, pp. 68–73
- ISBN 0-521-56256-2
- ISBN 0-19-507993-0
- ^ Yakubovich 2010, pp. 140–57
- ^ Kloekhorst, Alwin. "The Proto-Anatolian consonant system: An argument in favor of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis?".
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - ^ Simon, Zsolt. "Der phonetische Wert der luwischen Laryngale".
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - ^ Melchert 2003 p. 171
- ^ Yakubovich 2010, pp. 45–53
- ^ Yakubovich 2008
- ISBN 978-3-447-06109-4.
- ^ "EDIANA - Corpus". www.ediana.gwi.uni-muenchen.de. Retrieved 2020-02-14.
- ^ Watkins 1994; Watkins 1995:144–51; Melchert 2003, pp. 265–70 with ref.
- ^ Starke, Frank (1997). "Troia im Kontext des historisch-politischen und sprachlichen Umfeldes Kleinasiens im 2. Jahrtausend". Studia Troica. 7: 447–87.
- ^ Latacz 2004, p. 116
Sources
- Beekes, R. S. P. "Luwians and Lydians", Kadmos 42 (2003): 47–9.
- Gander, Max. "Asia, Ionia, Maeonia und Luwiya? Bemerkungen zu den neuen Toponymen aus Kom el-Hettan (Theben-West) mit Exkursen zu Westkleinasien in der Spätbronzezeit". Klio 97/2 (2015): 443–502.
- Gander, Max "The West: Philology". Hittite Landscape and Geography, M. Weeden and L. Z. Ullmann (eds.). Leiden: Brill, 2017. pp. 262–280.
- Hawkins, J. D. "Tarkasnawa King of Mira: 'Tarkendemos', Boğazköy Sealings, and Karabel", Anatolian Studies 48 (1998): 1–31.
- Hawkins, J. D. "The Arzawa letters in recent perspective", British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 14 (2009): 73–83.
- Hawkins, J. D. "A New Look at the Luwian Language". Kadmos 52/1 (2013): 1–18.
- Laroche, Emmanuel. Catalogue des textes hittites. Paris: Klincksieck, 1971.
- Latacz, Joachim (2004). Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199263080.
- Matessi, A. "The Making of Hittite Imperial Landscapes: Territoriality and Balance of Power in South-Central Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age". Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, AoP (2017).
- Melchert H. Craig. "Greek mólybdos as a loanword from Lydian", in Anatolian Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and their Neighbours, eds. B. J. Collins et al. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2008, pp. 153–7.
- Melchert, H. Craig. 'Lycian', in The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor, ed. R. D. Woodard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 46–55, esp. 46.
- Melchert, H. Craig, ed. The Luwians. Boston: Brill, 2003. ISBN 90-04-13009-8.
- Melchert, H. Craig. Anatolian Historical Phonology. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994.
- Melchert, H. Craig. Cuneiform Luvian Lexicon. Chapel Hill: self-published, 1993.
- 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. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987, pp. 182–204.
- Melchert, H. Craig (2012). "The Position of Anatolian" (PDF).
- Otten, Heinrich. Zur grammatikalischen und lexikalischen Bestimmung des Luvischen. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1953.
- Rieken, Elisabeth. "Luwier, Lykier, Lyder—alle vom selben Stamm?", in Die Ausbreitung des Indogermanischen: Thesen aus Sprachwissenschaft, Archäologie und Genetik; Akten der Arbeitstagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Würzburg, 24–26 September 2009, ed. H. Hettrich & S. Ziegler. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2012.
- Rosenkranz, Bernhard. Beiträge zur Erforschung des Luvischen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1952.
- Sasseville, David. Anatolian Verbal Stem Formation. Leiden / New-York: Brill, 2021.
- Singer, I. 2005. 'On Luwians and Hittites.' Bibliotheca Orientalis 62:430–51. (Review article of Melchert 2003).
- Starke, Frank. 'Troia im Kontext des historisch-politischen und sprachlichen Umfeldes Kleinasiens im 2. Jahrtausend. Studia Troica 7:446–87.
- Starke, Frank. Die keilschrift-luwischen Texte in Umschrift (StBoT30, 1985)
- Starke, Frank. Untersuchungen zur Stammbildung des keilschrift-luwischen Nomens (StBoT30, 1990)
- Watkins, C. 1995. How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics. New York and Oxford.
- Watkins, C.1994. 'The Language of the Trojans.' In Selected Writings, ed. L. Oliver et al., vol. 2. 700–717. Innsbruck. = Troy and the Trojan War. A Symposium held at Bryn Mawr College, October 1984, ed. M. Mellink, 45–62. Bryn Mawr.
- Widmer, P. 2006. 'Mykenisch ru-wa-ni-jo, "Luwier".' Kadmos 45:82–84.
- Woudhuizen, Fred. The Language of the Sea Peoples. Amsterdam: Najade Pres, 1992.
- Yakubovich, Ilya. Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language. Leiden: Brill, 2010
- Yakubovich, Ilya. "The Origin of Luwian Possessive Adjectives". In Proceedings of the 19th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Los Angeles, November 3–4, 2007, ed. K. Jones-Bley et al., Washington: Institute for the Study of Man, 2008.
- Luwian Identities: Culture, Language and Religion between Anatolia and the Aegean. Brill, 2013. ISBN 978-90-04-25341-4(e-Book)
Further reading
- Melchert, H. Craig; Yakubovich, Ilya (2022). "Binding and Smiting: One More Merism in Luvian Incantations". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 142 (2): 371–386. S2CID 251168565.
- Mouton, Alice; Yakubovich, Ilya (2021). "Where did one speak luwili? Geographic and linguistic diversity of Luwian cuneiform texts". Journal of Language Relationship. 19 (1–2): 25–53. doi:10.1515/jlr-2021-191-208 (inactive 31 January 2024).)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link - Yakubovich, I. (2023). "Cuneiform Luwian in the Hattuša Archives". In Giusfredi, Federico; Pisaniello, Valerio; Matessi, Alvise (eds.). Contacts of Languages and Peoples in the Hittite and Post-Hittite World. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 284–312. ISBN 978-90-04-54863-3.
External links
- "Digital etymological-philological Dictionary of the Ancient Anatolian Corpus Languages (eDiAna)". Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
- Luwian Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
- Arzawa, to the west, throws light on Hittites
- Alekseev Manuscript
- Hieroglyphic Luwian Phonetic Signs
- Catalog of Hittite Texts: texts in other languages
- Genitive Case and Possessive Adjective in Anatolian
- Melchert's homepage on the UCLA website Archived 2019-09-05 at the Wayback Machine