Hittite language

Hittite, also known as Nesite (Nešite/Neshite, Nessite), is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a people of Bronze Age Anatolia who created an empire centred on Hattusa, as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.

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C

• (The Hittite language) cannot be accepted without qualification as Aryan. ... The deviations in the inflection are puzzlingly numerous. ... Again the number of Indo-European words and stems identified in the vocabulary is but small. Finally, the syntax remains essentially un- Aryan... Now if these documents dated from the 14th century AD, few would hesitate to declare that they were written in an Indo-European language and explain the discrepancies as due to the familiar phenomena of decay, assimilation of forms, and foreign borrowing. But the texts... are many centuries older than the oldest written memorials of Sanskrit or Greek. Yet their language diverges from the hypothetical original Aryan tongue far more than Greek or Sanskrit differs from the parent speech or from one another. It is a fact impossible to believe that a truly Indo-European language would look so odd in the 14th century before our era.
  • Childe, The Aryans. quoted in S. Talageri, The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993)

• Nasili cannot be accepted without qualification as Aryan. ... The deviations in the inflection are puzzlingly numerous. ... Again the number of Indo-European words and stems identified in the vocabulary is but small. Finally, the syntax remains essentially un- Aryan... Now if these documents dated from the 14th century AD, few would hesitate to declare that they were written in an Indo-European language and explain the discrepancies as due to the familiar phenomena of decay, assimilation of forms, and foreign borrowing. But the texts... are many centuries older than the oldest written memorials of Sanskrit or Greek. Yet their language diverges from the hypothetical original Aryan tongue far more than Greek or Sanskrit differs from the parent speech or from one another. It is a fact impossible to believe that a truly Indo-European language would look so odd in the 14th century before our era.
  • The Aryans: A study of Indo-European origins, by Childe, V Gordon. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926. [1] quoted in S. Talageri, The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993)

• While the reading of the inscriptions by Hrozny and other scholars has almost conclusively shown that they spoke an Indo-European language, their physical type is clearly Mongoloid, as is shown by their representations both on their own sculptures and on Egyptian monuments. They had high cheek-bones and retreating foreheads.
  • Carnoy Albert J. 1919: Pre-Aryan Origins of the Persian Perfect. pp. 117-121 in The Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.39, 1919.(CARNOY 1919:117).

• It has often been remarked - and not without reason - that although the grammar of the Anatolian languages would be recognizably Indo-European, the vocabulary would be less so. This is usually attributed to the deeply penetrating influences exercised by strange surroundings not only while the Anatolians were en route, but also after their arrival in Anatolia.
  • H.J. Houwinkten Cate in Encyclopedia Britannica, quoted in Talageri, The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993)

J

• The Hittite monuments are numerous and are found over a wide extent of territory. In their sculpture Babylonian influence is evident, although the physiognomy and costume of the subjects of representation, as well as several minor details, give Hittite art a distinct individuality. As is the case with Babylonian art, the sculptures are usually accompanied with inscriptions. ... Representations of the Hittites are found also on Egyptian monuments, as at Abu-Simbel and Medinet-Abu. The character of Hittite art is solid, at times even heavy, but excellent in the portrayal of animal forms. The Hittites were also skilled lapidaries and carvers on ivory, as well as clever silversmiths, while their paintings of Egypt give a vivid idea of Hittite tactics in war.
  • Jewish Encyclopedia, Hittites, Richard Gottheil, Louis H. Gray. [2]

• The Hittites as shown both on their own and on Egyptian monuments were clearly Mongoloid in type. They were short and stout, prognathous, and had rather receding foreheads. The cheek-bones were high, the nose was large and straight, forming almost a line with the forehead, and the upper lip protruded. They were yellow in color, with black hair and eyes, and were beardless, while according to the Egyptian paintings they wore their hair in pigtails, although this characteristic does not appear in the Hittite sculptures. They would seem to have come from the northeast of Mesopotamia, and to have worked south into Palestine and west into Asia Minor.
  • Jewish Encyclopedia, Hittites, Richard Gottheil, Louis H. Gray. [3]

K

• The word Khatti, which means Hittite may possibly be connected with Sanskrit Kshatriya and Pali Khattiyo.
  • D.D. Kosabmi, The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India. 1965. Quoted in Karpasa, and Talageri : The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993)

L

• [The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology points out that nothing is known about the original Indo-European gods of the Hittites, with the sole exception of one god, Inar, whom the encyclopedia actually describes as] " a God who had come from India with the Indo-European Hittites."
  • Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology quoted in Talageri, The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993), p. 128

N

• The location of the Anatolian branch of IE (Hittite and its sisters) is a problem, or at least a puzzle, for IE homeland studies. The Anatolian languages are attested very early in Asia Minor, removed from Europe and far from the steppe; Gamkrelidze and Ivanov ... offer as a strength the ability of their proposed homelands to account for the location of Hittite with minimal migration. Alternatively or additionally, the location of Tocharian—attested in the early centuries AD well to the east of most IE territory in present-day Xinkiang (Chinese Turkestan)—is a problem or a puzzle... Accounting for the locations of both Hittite and Tocharian is usually presented, at least rhetorically, as a major problem.
  • Johanna Nichols NICHOLS. 1998. The Eurasian spread zone and the Indo-European dispersal. in : Blench, R., & Spriggs, M. (2012). Archaeology and Language II: Archaeological Data and Linguistic Hypotheses. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

S

• The Hittites were a people with yellow skins and ‘mongoloid’ features whose receding foreheads, oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws, are represented as faithfully on their own monuments as they are on those of Egypt, so that we cannot accuse the Egyptian artists of caricaturing their enemies...
  We have seen that the Hittites were a northern race. Their primitive home probably lay on the northern side of the Taurus. What they were like we can learn both from their own sculptures and from the Egyptian monuments, which agree most remarkably in the delineation of their features. The extraordinary resemblance between the Hittite faces drawn by the Egyptian artists and those depicted by themselves in their bas-reliefs and their hieroglyphs, is a convincing proof of the faithfulness of the Egyptian representations, as well as of the identity of the Hittites of the Egyptian inscriptions with the Hittites of Carchemish and Kappadokia.
  It must be confessed that they were not a handsome people. They were short and thick of limb, and the front part of their faces was pushed forward in a curious and somewhat repulsive way. The forehead retreated, the cheek-bones were high, the nostrils were large, the upper lip protrusive. They had, in fact, according to the craniologists, the characteristics of a Mongoloid race. Like the Mongols, moreover, their skins were yellow and their eyes and hair were black. They arranged the hair in the form of a 'pig-tail,' which characterizes them on their own and the Egyptian monuments quite as much as their snow-shoes with upturned toes.
  In Syria they doubtless mixed with the Semitic race, and the further south they advanced the more likely they were to become absorbed into the native population.
  • Archibald Sayce, “The Hittites, The Story of a forgotten Empire”, the Religious Tract Society, Piccadilly, 1890. pp. 15, 101

W

• The Hittites were from the earliest times exposed to the influence of other languages each of which had literary tradition… [They] were profoundly influenced by Mesopotamian culture as mediated through the peripheral Akkadian.. and by the contact with the Assyrian merchant colonies of the 19th and 18th centuries... The major cultural influence, at least in religion and cult came from Hurrian... [resulting in] the Hurrianization of the Hittite pantheon.
  • quoted in Kazanas, N. (2003). Final reply: Indo-Aryan migration debate. Journal of Indo-European studies, 31(1-2), 187-240.
  • Watkins C. 2001 How to kill a Dragon: Aspects of IE Poetics Oxford, OUP (1995). (1995: 52-53).