Hittite Language

Hittite Language, Indo-European language of the extinct Hittite civilization, surviving in cuneiform inscriptions on tablets excavated at sites in Asia Minor in the region occupied by ancient Hatti. Hittite, Luwian, Palaic (all recorded before 1000 bc), Lydian, and Lycian (both recorded c. 500-200 bc) form the Anatolian subfamily of Indo-European languages. Palaic was spoken in the country called Pala, north of Hatti, and Luwian was spoken in the country called Arzawa, west of Hatti, and in Cilicia, south of Hatti; Lydian was spoken in north-western Anatolia, Lycian (descended from Luwian) in the south-west. The Hittites called their language Nesian or Nesite, after Nesa, the first town that they settled, near the site of present-day Kayseri, Turkey.

Hittite texts in cuneiform writing date to 1600 bc and are the oldest written records of any Indo-European language. Hittite was identified as an Indo-European language only in 1915, by the Czech Orientalist Bedřich Hrozný, and the related languages even more recently. Linguists are not yet certain whether the Anatolian group broke away from the parent language, Proto-Indo-European, before any other known Indo-European tongue, or whether it was merely one of the earliest to break away. Scholarly research recognizes a much larger number of Indo-European words in the Hittite language than was previously suspected; the source of many other words remains to be identified. Hittite had nine noun cases, which is one more than Proto-Indo-European.