Anatolian languages

The Anatolian languages are a group of languages, either Indo-European or (in some classifications) closely related to Indo-European, which were spoken in Asia Minor, including Hittite. Other Anatolian languages include Luwian, the language of the script commonly called "Hittite hieroglyphics" and Palaic. Lydian and Lycian are later Anatolian languages that are known from a number of inscriptions; no extended texts survive in them.

In 1906 there were excavations in Central Asia Minor by German scientists. At Bogázköy they discovered the capital of the Hittitic Empire. It was prosperous from 1900 till 1200 BC. Thousands of clay tablets were found, written in cuneiform, most of them from the 17th till the 14th century BC. The Hittite language was deciphered by Bedřich Hrozný in 1916-1917, who discovered that it was an Indo-European language. The Hittite morphology is less complicated than other, older Indo-European languages. Either some Indo-European characteristics disappeared in Hittite or the other languages have innovated. It contains numerous archaisms of great importance. In these archives some other languages were found as well.

See also