Mark Ronan's website
Hittite
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The
Hittite language is in the Indo-European family, as are Greek, Latin, and
Sanskrit, along with such sub-families as Germanic, Celtic, Slavic and
Indo-Iranian. The Indo-European sub-family containing Hittite is called
Anatolian, and includes several other languages, which in their written form
did not survive the Hellenization of Anatolia (modern Turkey) under Alexander
the Great and his successors. Some may still have been spoken in rural areas,
though none have survived to the present day. Hittite
was written in the cuneiform script during the second
millennium BC, as were two other Anatolian languages, Luwian and Palaic.
Luwian is also written in a hieroglyphic script of its own. It is plausible
that the language of the Trojans was in the Anatolian sub-family, possibly a
form of Luwian. Other Anatolian languages, such as Lydian, the language of
the Lydian empire under King Croesus, were written in alphabetic scripts
during the first millennium BC. An excellent website on
Hittite is available. |
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