Luwian

Luvian is the language of Anatolian hieroglyphic inscriptions and a close relative of Hittite. This book explores the Luvian ethnic history through sociolinguistic methods, with an emphasis on the interpretation of contacts between Luvian and its linguistic neighbors, such as Hittite, Hurrian, and Greek. It is concluded that Luvian was originally spoken in the central part of Anatolia. Subsequent Luvian migrations were connected with the expansion of the Hittite state, where Hittite was the socially dominant language, but the Luvian speakers were more numerous. The unstable balance between the Hittite and the Luvian speakers continued to shift in favor of the second group, to the point that the Hittite elites were fully bilingual in Luvian.

There is a general agreement among scholars that the name Lycaonia derives from Luwian *Luka-wani, i. e. "inhabitant of Lukka". This interpretation was introduced by Goetze (1954 [1]) and accepted by Laroche (1976 [2]: 17) and later put under scrutiny by Melchert (2003 [3]: 14) and Simon (2019 [4]). Also Carruba (1996 [5]), Durnford (2013 [6]: 62-63), Schürr (2016 [7]) have accepted what is reported by the chronicles of the Hittite kings: invaders from Lukka (Bryce 1992 [8]) would push towards the Konya Plain. Of course, these records (Hawkins 1995 [9]: 29) are very distant from the first mention of Lycaonia in Cyropaedia by Xenophon around 370 B.C. Another impending problem is how they might be reflected in Genesis, whose historical background is not easy to pinpoint. Paradoxically, some light might come from what seems at first most uncertain. First, because in the rarefied picture of Biblical proto‑history, Lamech is the only Cainite to deserve a full-fledged myth after Adam.

Starting from the so-called “Nordwestblock” for criteria, the present investigation seeks to find out whether this earliest or Old Indo-European layer, datable from c. 3100 BC onwards, is also traceable in the hydronyms, toponyms, and ethnics with a bearing on the peninsulas of the northern Mediterranean, from Iberia in the west to Anatolia in the east. In doing so, as much as 26 Proto-Indo-European roots are selected which are likely to be representative for this earliest Indo-European layer in the Mediterranean, though not necessarily so as these roots are mostly of a common type and of continuous use in the individual languages Indo-European languages subsequently attested in the given regions. In this study, which is inspired by Hans Krahe’s work on Old [Indo-] European river names, the relevant Iberian material is, as far as I know, systematically integrated for the first time.

This Excel file is a WORK IN PROGRESS on Indo-European basic lexicon, aligning PIE reconstructions from IEW, LIV and Mallory-Adams with intermediate reconstructions of IE sub-families found in several other sources (mainly Brill / Leiden etymological dictionaries): see dedicated sheet for details on sources.
Reconstructions with a green background have more complete data than those with a white background.
This DRAFT database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to explore external genetic relationships between Indo-European languages and other language families.

ÖZET

Araştırmamda Luwice’nin yayılış alanı, keşfedilişi ve dil özellikleri anlatılmıştır. Bu araştırmada Luwilerin konuştuğu dille Hititçe arasında zaman zaman karşılaştırmalar yapılmış ve Luwiceden örnekler verilmiştir. Luwiler Anadolu’nun en eski dillerinde biri olan Luwiceyi konuştular. Tahminen Anadolu’ya Balkanlar üzerinden geldiler. Luwiler Hititlerin idaresi altında yaşadılar. Anadolu’daki Luwice yazıtlara bakıldığında hakim nüfusu temsil ediyorlardı. Hitit imparatorluğu’nun yıkılışından sonrada varlıklarını devam ettirip sonra ortadan kayboldular.
Luwice çözülürken ilk başta Hititçenin hiyeroglif hali zannedilmiştir. Fakat sonradan dil üzerinde yapılan incelemeler bu dilin Hititçeden farklı olduğunu ortaya koymuştur. Luwi hiyeroglifleri adı verilmiştir.
Araştırmada dil bilgisi kısmında Prof. Dr. Ali M. Dinçol’un ‘’Eski Anadolu Dillerine Giriş’’  adlı kitabından yararlanılmıştır.
Araştırmamda okuyucu, Luwiler ve Luwi Dili ile ilgili bilgileri tek bir yazıda bulabilecektir.

Introduction of my master's degree thesis, whose purpose is to investigate the possible anatolian origin of the Greek epic poetry represented by the Homeric poems. Inside the Introduction I also offer my vision upon the Homeric question. Thanks to my mentors, professor A. Rodighiero and professor F. Giusfredi.

I have tried to apply three criteria so far: 1) Genesis' proto-history contains allusions to historical peoples, shrouded by some well-known mythology in a period identifiable with the second half of the sixth century B.C. and Homeric Lycians comply to this description, because their myth goes back to Iron Age at least. 2) The second criterion is to give a paradigmatic value for Genesis to the Lycian myths in which the fight with a serpentine mythological enemy is involved. Certainly, if the "gestation period" for Genesis was late sixth century, then at that time Homeric epic cycles are a proof that certain themes were already circulating. Leto's mythical fight against Python fulfils this criterion, because she is a mother-goddess that might have provided a mirror for the "the mother of all living" Eve (Gn 3:20). With the due proportions, this parallelism between Eve and Leto comes to rescue the so-called "prophecy" of Gn 3:15 from nonsense. Eve and her seed are bound to fight the snake's seed in a narrative which has allowed the future enemies to talk to each other friendly. Among the Lycian myths which may be consistent with this original pattern of a "talkative monster", we should have a look at what is said about the Lycian warrior Amisodarus (or Isaras, LLES 243, 246; HE 41, 118, 164, 553), who fed the Chimera according to Homer (Il. 16.28). Besides, the Lycian adopted hero, Bellerophon, who slays the Chimera, a serpentiform monster, offspring of Echidna (Hesiod, Theogony 295-308), is available to represent the "seed of the woman" engaged in the mysterious fight described in Gn 3:15. From Bellerephon's myth we might draw inspiration to discover who is the people bound to challenge the celestial sphere in which Cain seems to inhabit. The Gygean Lake, not far from Sardis, the capital of Lydia, was home to Echidna and the birthplace of the Lydian royal lineage (Robert 1982 [1]: 334-352). 3) The third criterion is to check whether the application of a certain mythological framework is motivated by a historical background where to find the underlying ideological reasons. Lydia is the last great Anatolian empire before the arrival of the Persians and also the protagonist of an epoch-making betrayal, according to Herodotus, because Lydians revolt after the conquest, triggering the Persian plan to make a nation of merchants out of a race of warriors. At this point, another work hypothesis can be advanced: the clash between the two brothers Cain and Abel would represent the conflict between two eponymous heroes.

In the present paper the relevant data concerning the Lydian yod-sign will be scrutinized. It will be argued that this sign, contrary to its current transliteration as a secondary n, in line with its epigraphic origin renders the value i 1 and has to be transliterated in contradistinction from the straight iota as i 1. To this aim the use of the sign in grammatical endings and in vocabulary words will be reviewed. Time and again it will appear that the reading of the sign as i 1 results in forms straight for wardly paralleled for the Luwian language. The new reading, amply illustrated in this manner, therefore leads to the conclusion that Lydian, notwithstanding its own dialectal development during the Early Iron Age, is a direct descendant of the Arzawan language of the Late Bronze Age and hence an ordinary Luwian dialect.

An evaluation of whether the special endings that appear on Anatolian neuter gender nouns in Agent-function reflect split-NP ergativity or an 'animatising' derivative. Appendix includes an exploration of why the Anatolian 'animatising' derivative may have emerged.

The Karatepe inscriptions contain an intriguing image of a woman walking fearlessly with spindles. This image builds on the symbolism of the spindle in the ancient Near East as an emblem of femininity and highlights the gendered language of the passage in which it occurs. In the context, the figure of the woman with spindles is contraposed with the image of the fearful man. The contrast between them portrays the magnitude of the positive changes accomplished by Azitawada, the ruler who commissioned the inscriptions.

Hatti, Hittites, Luwians, Hurrians and Assyrians: the Foundations of Civilization of Anatolia and the Origin of today's Turkey
First published on 1st August 2021 here:
https://profmegalommatistextsingreek.wordpress.com/2021/08/01/χάττι-χιττίτες-λουβίτες-χουρίτες-και/

Δεν υπάρχουν Χετταίοι. Είναι λάθος παλαιών βιβλιογραφιών, όταν δεν είχαν ακόμη αποκρυπτογραφηθεί τα χιττιτικά και οι άλλες ανατολιακές γλώσσες. Το λάθος οφείλεται σε αρχαιοελληνικές πηγές αναφερόμενες στους Ετεοκρήτες – κάτι που αποτελούσε λάθος ιστορικών παραδόσεων σε ένα κόσμο χωρίς σημαντική φιλολογική και ανακτορική παράδοση με πολλούς γραφείς να συγγράφουν Χρονικά και να διατηρούν συστηματικά και επιστημονικά την γνώση πρότερων εποχών και γεγονότων.

Σημειωτέον ότι τα ανευρεθέντα δείγματα γραφής, τα οποία αποκαλούνται ‘ετεοκρητικά’ ούτε βεβαίως ‘ελληνικά’ είναι, ούτε και σχετίζονται με τους Χιττίτες ή τους Χάττι. Συνεπώς, ο λαθεμένος και ανυπόστατος όρος ‘Χετταίοι’ πρέπει να καταργηθείς στα ελληνικά, όπως άλλωστε έχει καταργηθεί σε όλα τις γλώσσες χωρών με πανεπιστημιακές σπουδές και ειδίκευση σε χιττιτολογία και ασσυριολογία.

Χάττι, Λουβίτες, Παλά και Λούκα: Αυτόχθονες Ανατολίτες

Υπάρχουν στην Ανατολία του τέλους της 3ης προχριστιανικής Ανατολίας: Χάττι (αυτόχθονες γύρω από Γιοζγκάτ), Λουβίτες (αυτόχθονες γύρω από Ικόνιο), Παλαΐτες (αυτόχθονες γύρω από Κασταμονή) και δυτικο-Ανατολίτες Λούκα (από Τροία μέχρι Καρία). Από την λέξη Παλά προέρχεται ακριβώς η ελληνική λέξη Παφλαγονία (για την συγκεκριμένη περιοχή) και, αντίστοιχα, από την λέξη Λούκα η λέξη Λυκαονία.

This book presents a new model for understanding the collection of ancient kingdoms that surrounded the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea from the Cilician Plain in the west to the upper Tigris River in the east, and from Cappadocia in the north to western Syria in the south, during the Iron Age of the ancient Near East (ca. 1200 to 600 BCE). Rather than presenting them as homogenous ethnolinguistic communities like "the Aramaeans" or "the Luwians" living in neatly bounded territories, this book sees these polities as being fundamentally diverse and variable, distinguished by demographic fluidity and cultural mobility. The Syro-Anatolian City-States sheds new light via an examination of a host of evidentiary sources, including archaeological site plans, settlement patterns, visual arts, and historical sources. Together, these lines of evidence reveal a complex fusion of cultural traditions that is nevertheless distinctly recognizable unto itself. This book is the first to specifically characterize the Iron Age city-states of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, arguing for a unified cultural formation characterized above all by diversity and mobility and that can be referred to as the "Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex."

Depuis l’Antiquité, l’humain redoute que le repos de ses défunts soit troublé par des tiers. La Lycie antique, cette petite région isolée du sud-ouest de l’Anatolie située au carrefour des civilisations grecque et anatoliennes, ne fut pas en reste. Entre le VIe siècle a.C. et la fin du Ier siècle p.C., ce peuple, ayant développé une culture originale en raison de sa position géographique, a utilisé l’imprécation funéraire afin de protéger ses sépultures. Ces traces épigraphiques écrites en lycien et/ou en grec ont évoluée différemment à travers les époques et les lieux, notamment à travers leurs formulaires-types. Notre interrogation principale a été de savoir si ces malédictions funéraires étaient le fruit d’une acculturation totale avec la Grèce ou si elles étaient plutôt représentatives de la juxtaposition des diverses cultures qui ont traversé la région (hittite, louvite et perse), enracinant ainsi ce procédé protectif dans le substrat magicoreligieux anatolien. Il appert que, malgré le fait que la Grèce continentale ait elle-même utilisé la malédiction au sens large sur son sol propre, nous n’avons pas trouvé de traces d’imprécations funéraires sur son sol. En Anatolie, la malédiction funéraire n’a pas, non plus, été employée de manière uniforme ou constante entre les grandes civilisations s’étant partagé la souveraineté de ce vaste territoire, mêmes si elles étaient friandes de malédictions en tout genre. En effet, si certains peuples l’ont utilisée de façon anecdotique, comme les Perses, les Babyloniens ou les Assyriens, d’autres ne l’ont d’ailleurs jamais employée, notamment les Hittites. Toutefois, les divinités citées et les types de menaces des nombreuses autres malédictions rédigées par ces peuples et leur prédécesseurs ressemblent bien aux exemples lyciens étudiés. C’est du peuple louvite, qui nous a légué nombre de malédictions funéraires et dont le schéma imprécatoire ressemble à s’y méprendre au premier formulaire-type lycien, que cette pratique sur les tombes en tant que tel semble être issue. Seules originalités puremment lyciennes : la menace légale et le risque de devenir impie ou sacrilège en cas de profanation de sépulture.

Compared to other Syro-Anatolian city-states, indigenous documents from Iron Age Cilicia are rare. Whereas Karkamish, for example, has provided us with ca. 80 inscriptions (and counting), only five inscriptions thus far come from Cilicia. One of those is the ÇİNEKÖY inscription  of king Waraika  of Hiyawa (= Que, classical Cilicia), a Phoenician-Luwian bilingual. Found in 1997, it now supplies the third bilingual text from Cilicia , in addition to the well-known Phoenician-Luwian KARATEPE 1 bilingual , and the extremely eroded and nearly illegible Assyrian-Phoenician İncirli bilingual .  As an important political document with historical implications, it is necessary to correctly identify the main protagonists, especially the Assyrian king, and the location of the narrated events.
Based on a reanalysis of the river name Sapara (= Seyhan) in ÇİNEKÖY § 8 as hapas pari(ya)n ‘Beyond-the-River’, which is best interpreted as a calque on Phoenician ʾbr nhr and Assyrian eber nāri, I will argue that the building activities described in ÇİNEKÖY § 8-10 do not take place in the heartland of Hiyawa near the Seyhan river, but in the territory of Gurgum, to the east of Hiyawa.

""Etruscan is an Indo-European language, probably belonging to a sub-branch of Anatolian which does not include Hittite. This claim is based on the following evidence:
• only lexical items for which Etruscologists have proposed a gloss have been used in this research (no attempt has been made at proposing new glosses for currently obscure or highly controversial Etruscan terms);
• 138 of the glosses put forth by Etruscologists belong to basic lexicon, and 97% of such basic lexicon has an IE etymology;
• 19 grammar morphemes have also been assigned a value by Etruscologists: 95% of them have an IE etymology;
• all such etymologies are based on regular sound laws;
• a few notable innovations are shared by Etruscan and Anatolian languages (often excluding Hittite).""

The Luwian ritual texts known as the Songs of Istanuwa and the Songs of the Men of Lallupiya are shown to be at once the earliest textual references to the cult of Cybele and also the Anatolian instantiation of the ancient Near Eastern genre of the city lament. The Bronze Age antiquity of the institution of the transgender lamentation priest in Anatolia—the antecedent of the Greek gallos and Roman gallus and the counterpart of the Mesopotamian GALA—is also demonstrated.

This paper was presented at a conference held at UCL in 2009. It has subsequently been published in K.E. Piquette and R.D. Whitehouse (eds), Writing as Material Practice: Substance, Surface and Medium, pp 75-104. During the Second Millennium BC the Levant became the meeting point for a number of different writing traditions, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieratic, proto-Canaanite, Akkadian cuneiform, Ugaritic, Hittite hieroglyphs and Cypro-Minoan. This mixture of interregional influences and diverse practices provides a backdrop that may help explain the sort of experimentation that could lead to the development of alphabetic scripts, despite the presence of dominant syllabic writing systems in surrounding regions. This paper seeks to explore the social and cultural setting in which writing was encountered, used, and in some cases adapted, by the peoples of the Levant during this formative period of its history. In particular, it will look at the types of objects on which writing ...

This chapter of my book in progress examines the ancient city Karahöyük-Konya in relation to the kingdom of Purušhanda.The chapter also describes the possible relations with the Göksu valley, Alalakh, Amuq valley, the Amanum and Taurus mountains.

The aim of this study is the synthesis of textual and archaeological evidence about the Tabal Kingdom emerged on the Central Anatolian Plateau after the collapse of Hittite Empire. Development of the Tabal Kingdom between 850-650 BC was traced through the Assyrian written sources but local textual evidence also provides significant information about the history of Tabal. Beside the Assyrian and local textual evidence, artworks, pottery traditions, settlement models, architectural traditions, metal works and religious practices indicate that Tabal was the key element of Central Anatolian Iron Age culture. Archaeological surveys and excavations held in Tabal land indicate that main geographical distribution of Alişar 4 pottery tradition was in Tabal kingdom. Sculptural remains from Tabal reflect Assyrian and Aramaic influences within the concept of Late Hittite art. While the political relations with other Iron Age political entities like Mushki, Urartu, Khaska and Assyria indicated by textual sources, archaeological materials specific to the region reflects Tabalian identity.

In summary, the Karians lived in a close symbiosis with the Greeks, first the Mycenaeans, then especially the Ionians, for more than a millennium. Interestingly, Karian-Dorian contact was not that long-lived, nor was it as intensive as the Ionian-Karian one. This remains true until the Hellenistic period, when Rhodes established its large peraia on the Karian mainland. 
The peninsula of Knidos existed as a Dorian Greek ‘island’ on the Karian mainland from at least Geometric times onwards. The Isthmos was surrounded by the other cities of the ‘Dorian Hexapolis’, and connected with them via the sea. The Triopion, the common sanctuary of the Dorian city league, was located at its western tip, Cape Tekir. The peninsula was easy to cut off from the hinterland, which allowed the Knidians to build a five stadia long ditch at its narrowest point to protect themselves from the advancing Persian army (Herodotus 1.174).
The ‘Dorian’ past of Halikarnassos receded in favour of a ‘Kekropid’-Ionian one early on, as is indicated in her foundation story in the Hellenistic Salmakis Epigram. The reason will have been Halikarnassos’ exclusion from the Dorian ‘Hexapolis’ in the sixth century BCE, henceforth a mere ‘Pentapolis’, comprising the Dorians concentrated on the adjacent islands of Rhodes and Kos, whose only mainland footings were Knidos and the Triopion.
From the fifth century BCE on, the Karians gradually gave up the main marker of Karian identity, their language and script, in favour of the Ionian one. Their closeness to the Ionian Greeks, as well as the will to widen their zone of influence, may have caused the Hekatomnids Maussollos and Idrieus to back the refoundation of the Ionian League and the common festival of the Panionia at Mt. Mykale. This is strongly supported by their involvement in the refoundation of New Priene, the city managing and protecting the Panionion (see § 6.3). At the same time, however, the parallel relocation of Knidos, again initiated by Maussollos,  may have aimed at the simultaneous control of the adjacent Triopion.  It is important to note that the new Karian capital at Halikarnassos was a former member of this league (see § 1). The Hekatomnids clearly aimed at establishing their influence on the Greek mainland also, again instrumentalising Greek as well as Karian cults: the relief from Tegea testifies to the translation of Zeus Labraundeus to the Peloponnese by Ada and Idrieus (Fig.17), while around 345 BCE, dependent Miletos erected statues of the ruling couple in Panhellenic Delphi, instead in her own oracle sanctuary in Didyma. 
The Hekatomnids have this ambition in common with another Hellenized ‘barbarian’ people (Isocrates, Philippus 105–108), who were ultimately more successfull: the Macedonians. When Alexander the Great conquered Karia in 334/33 BCE, Ada adopted him. For this stroke of genius he made her satrap of Karia. Nevertheless the Hekatomnid dynasty came to an end, when she died in 324 BCE.  After her death or slightly earlier, the Karian language was gradually replaced by Attic Koiné. This is evident from the recently found bilingual proxeny-decree in Kaunos, dated to c. 322-314 BCE, which was written in local Kaunian-Karian and in Attic Koiné. 

I hope to have shown that the final assimilation of the Karian language and culture into the Greek, recognizable even in the loss of Karian personal names, is not the result of a cultural inferiority. This is simply the version of history that the Greeks have fostered, and passed on until today. They stylised the Karians as the prototypical ‘barbarians’ in the process of their own ethnogenesis as Hellenes. They did this with sayings like the following, which was still being repeated as late as the fifteenth century CE (Diogenianus Epicureus 6.24; Michael Apostolius, Paroemiae 12.37):
Λυδοὶ πονηροί, δεύτεροι δ’ Ἀιγύπτιοι, τρίτοι δὲ πάντων Κᾶρες ἐξωλέστατοι.
“The Lydians are base, second the Egyptians, but third and most abominable are the Karians”.

It was the failure of Karia to achieve political independence and unity that was decisive for the loss of its cultural identity.  The central rule of the Hekatomnid dynasty (395/94 or 392/1 to 324 BCE) was too short-lived,  and the cultural impact of Alexander and the Diadochi on Karia was too strong, while the Karian ‘Chrysaoric League’ (third/second century BCE) was too weak and active too late, and by no means purely Karian as it incorporated the Macedonian colonists in Stratonikeia (cf. Strabo 14.2.25) 
The Karians, like many other ‘Luwic’ people of Asia Minor, disappeared in the Roman Imperial period at the latest. Only the name of the land survived as the Byzantine province of Karia up to the thirteenth century CE, signalling the remnants of some form of ‘regional identity’.

Aegean protohistory suffered from a bias when the field was conceived 100 years ago and subsequent research has never questioned the fundamental paradigms of the discipline. As a consequence, only one third of the Aegean coasts have thus far been attributed to well-defined ancient cultures. This leaves tremendous opportunities for current and future generations of archaeologists – on the somewhat neglected eastern side of the Aegean. Practically all contemporary sources indicate that Late Bronze Age petty states used to form military alliances. The Assuwa league, mentioned in Hittite texts from around 1400 BCE, is a good example, but so are the mercenary forces mustered by Muwatalli and the various accounts of united tribes from the Aegean (aka “Sea Peoples”) and even – in later recollections of past events – Homer’s catalogues of ships and Trojan contingents. "The Luwian Civilization" argues that such a coalition of the petty states in western Asia Minor may have succeeded in bringing down the Hittite hegemony over central Asia Minor.

This paper examines the walwet and kukalim legends appearing on early electrum coinage from Lydia. After a survey of previous interpretations, it is argued that the appurtenance suffix in kukalim functions as a patronymic, ‘I am a son/descendant of Gyges’, referring to Alyattes, whose name is now gen- erally and correctly seen in walwet. Building on this, the chronological impli- cations that this reading poses for the dates of Alyattes are then considered in relation to the revised dating of coins from the Artemisium deposit. It is suggested that Alyattes was already on the Lydian throne by ca. 635 BC, a dating which has further implications for the chronology of other rulers of the Mermnad dynasty.

Version April 2023. These are synchronic entries. Reconstructions, if available, can be found under the same URL but written by my colleagues. ‒ This is a continuously updated list. Updates will be uploaded approx. at the beginning of every month. New entries are marked by red. ‒ Note the distinction between “Cuneiform Luwian” (i.e. Luwian in Luwian clauses) and “Luwian in Hittite Transmission” (i.e. alleged Luwian in Hittite clauses) as well as “Glossenkeilwörter” (any word marked in this way at least once in Hittite texts). ‒ To open directly the entries you need to use the URL given in the file, where X should be replaced by the ID number of the entry as shown below in the file.

The topic of the present contribution is two ethnic terms of likely Aegean origin specified in the title, which appear, in different guises, in written sources of the late 2nd and early 1st millennium BC across the entire Eastern Mediterranean, from Egypt in the South to the Levant to Cilicia in the North (besides the Aegean itself). My discussion of them will be, however, not quite the same. As for the first one, Ahhiyawa or Hiyawa, I will summarize the recent discussion revolving around recognition of this name in the Hieroglyphic-Luwian inscription KARATEPE, adding some details and placing it in a more general historical context. The second and central part of the paper will concern Danu(na), in which a full linguistic reassessment of this term and a revision of different sources which mention it will be offered. The third part will discuss the distinction between the two terms, also touching upon the problem of ethnolinguistic boundaries in Late Bronze Age Greece.