How a lost language of the 2nd millennium was rediscovered in a Turkish village
In short: In 1906, archaeologists unearthed 25,000 clay tablets in Hattusas, Turkey. These archives, written in a borrowed cuneiform script, revealed the secrets of the Hittites—a dominant Middle Eastern power. Deciphering this Indo-European tongue required solving a complex puzzle of ideograms, bilingual texts, and a unique scribal tradition that remains debated today.
The discovery of the royal archives at Hattusas, near Boğazköy, transformed our understanding of the 2nd millennium BC. While scholars like Johan Knudtzon had previously suspected an Indo-European language hidden within Egyptian diplomatic letters, it was Friedrich Hrozný who confirmed this during World War I. By analyzing the Boğazköy tablets, Hrozný proved that the Hittites, a major political force in Asia Minor, used a system adapted from Old Babylonian cuneiform to record their social, political, and religious lives.
The script itself is a hybrid system. It utilizes roughly 375 signs, a significant reduction from the 600 signs used in Old Assyrian. These signs function as syllabograms, Akkadograms, or Sumerograms. Syllabograms represent phonetic sounds, while Akkadograms and Sumerograms act as ideograms—symbols representing words rather than sounds. For example, a determiner might precede a noun to clarify its category, such as marking a city name, without being pronounced itself. This partial ideographic nature was crucial for early decipherment, as it provided meaning independent of the linguistic structure.
Scholars continue to debate the origins of this scribal tradition. One theory suggests that Ḫattušili I, during his 17th-century BC military campaigns, captured scribes who established the first academy at Ḫattuša. Others, such as Alwin Kloekhorst, argue that the transfer of Syro-Babylonian traditions was a more gradual process. Furthermore, the Hittite use of 'plene writing'—the insertion of extra vowels—remains a subject of investigation. While some believe it indicates inherited long vowels, others suggest it may relate to word accentuation, highlighting the complexities inherent in reconstructing this ancient language.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Cuneiform - Hittite, Sumerian, Akkadian | Britannica
- Also: The Hittite cuneiform tablets from Bogazköy - Memory of the World
- Also: Hittite cuneiform
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