|
Hittite (natively "(the language ) of Neša"), also known as Nesite and Neshite, is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, an Indo-European people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). The language is attested in cuneiform, in records from the 16th (Anitta text) down to the 13th century BC, with isolated Hittite loanwords and numerous personal names appearing in an Old Assyrian context from as early as the 20th century BC. By the Late Bronze Age, Hittite had started losing ground to its close relative Luwian. It appears that in the 13th century BC Luwian was the most widely spoken language in the Hittite capital Hattusa.〔Yakubovich 2010, p. 307〕 After the collapse of the Hittite Empire as a part of the more general Bronze Age collapse, Luwian emerged in the Early Iron Age as the main language of the so-called Neo-Hittite states in southwestern Anatolia and northern Syria. Hittite is the earliest attested Indo-European language. It is the best known of the Anatolian branch. ==Name== ''Hittite'' is the modern name for the language, chosen after the identification of the Hatti (''Khatti'') kingdom with the Hittites mentioned in the Bible (Hebrew ''Kheti''), although this identification was subsequently challenged. The terms ''Hattian'' or ''Hattic'',〔http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/ar/91-00/95-96/is/95-96_Soysal.pdf〕 by contrast, are used to refer to the indigenous people who preceded them, and their non Indo-European Hattic language. In multi-lingual texts found in Hittite locations, passages written in the Hittite language are preceded by the adverb ' (or ''nasili'', ''nisili''), "in the () of Neša (Kaneš)", an important city before the rise of the Empire. In one case, the label is ''Kanisumnili'', "in the () of the people of Kaneš". Although the Hittite empire was composed of people from many diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, the Hittite language was used in most of their secular written texts. In spite of various arguments over the appropriateness of the term, Hittite remains the most current term by convention, although some authors make a point of using Nesite or Neshite. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hittite language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|