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| Luwian | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Anatolia | |
| Language extinction: | around 600 BC | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Anatolian Luwian | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | — | |
| ISO 639-3: | either: xlu — Cuneiform Luwian hlu — Hieroglyphic Luwian
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Distribution of the Luwian language (after Melchert 2003)
Luwian (sometimes spelled Luvian) is an extinct language 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, eg. the Hittite Code, the Luwian-speaking areas including Arzawa and Kizzuwatna were called Luwia. In the post-Hittite era, the region of Arzawa came to be known as Lydia (Assyrian Luddu, Greek Λυδία).
Luwian is either the direct ancestor of Lycian, or a close relative of the ancestor of Lycian. Luwian is also one of the likely candidates for the language spoken by the Trojans, alongside a possible Tyrrhenian language related to Lemnian.
From this homeland, Luwian speakers gradually spread through Anatolia and became a contributing factor to the downfall, after circa 1180 BCE, of the Hittite Empire, where it was already widely spoken. Luwian was also the language spoken in the Neo-Hittite states of Syria, such as Milid and Carchemish, as well as in the central Anatolian kingdom of Tabal that flourished around 900 BCE.
Luwian has been preserved in two forms, named after the writing systems used to represent them: Cuneiform Luwian, and Hieroglyphic Luwian.
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Cuneiform Luwian is the form of the Luwian language attested in the tablet archives of Hattusa; it is essentially the same cuneiform writing system used in Hittite. In Laroche\'s Catalog of Hittite Texts, its corpus runs from CTH 757-773, mostly comprising rituals.
Hieroglyphic Luwian is a form of Luwian written in a native script, known as Anatolian hieroglyphs.Melchert, H. Craig. 2004. "Luvian", in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World\'s Ancient Languages, edited by Roger D. Woodard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56256-2 Melchert, H. Craig. 1996. "Anatolian Hieroglyphs", in The World\'s Writing Systems, ed. {Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0 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 first report of a monumental inscription dates to 1850, when an inhabitant of Nevşehir reported the relief at Fratkin. In 1870, antiquarian travellers in Aleppo found another inscription built into the south wall of the el-Qiqan Mosque. In 1884 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 in its hieroglyphic stage could have been influenced from Hittite and perhaps also Greek, which had spread to Late Minoan II Crete by the 15th century BCE.
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Indo-European topics |
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| Indo-European languages |
| Albanian · Armenian · Baltic Celtic · Germanic · Greek Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan, Iranian) Italic · Slavic extinct: Anatolian ·
Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, |
| Indo-European peoples |
| Albanians · Armenians Balts · Celts · Germanic peoples Greeks · Indo-Aryans Iranians · Latins · Slavs historical: Anatolians (Hittites, Luwians) |
| Proto-Indo-Europeans |
| Language · Society · Religion |
| Urheimat hypotheses |
| Kurgan hypothesis · Anatolia Armenia · India · PCT |
| Indo-European studies |
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 Luwian to propose that the Proto-Indo-European language had three distinct sets of velar consonants:
For Melchert, PIE *ḱ > Luwian z (probably [ts]); *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 BCE 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 descendants in general reflect survivals of a non-Indo-European type in western Anatolia. Where Hittite, with some Hieroglyphic Luwian and Palaic 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 Aegean Sprachbund preceding the arrivals of Luwians and Greeks. 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.
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