Hatti language

The hatti or hatic was a non-Indo-European language spoken in Asia Minor between the third and second millennium BC. C., before the appearance of the Hittites. In Hittite times it continued to be used as a sacred language in religious texts.

History

The Hittites, who spoke an Indo-European language (see Hittite language), eventually absorbed or replaced Hatti speakers, but continued to use the language in religious matters.

The names "hatti" and "Hittite" they are modern, and both derive from the same word: the ancient name of the region in which both cultures flourished, which has been reconstructed as Hatti in the Hittite language. The term "Hittite", taken from the Hebrew of the Bible, was given at the beginning of the 20th century (correctly or not) to the more recent culture and its Indo-European language; the name "hatti" it began to be used decades later for the older culture and its non-Indo-European language. It is still unknown what the Hatti called themselves or their language.

Classification

The less speculative view holds that Hatti is a language isolate with no proven parentage. The structure itself reveals that it is not related to the Indo-European or Semitic languages spoken historically in Anatolia and adjacent regions. Although certain characteristics similar to those found in the Northwest Caucasian languages (Circassian family) and South Caucasian languages (Kartvelian family) have been pointed out, there is no incontrovertible evidence of kinship. Hurrian language with the Caucasian languages are inconclusive.

Linguistic description

Hatti roots can be found in place names referring to mountains, rivers, cities and gods. some other hatti anthroponyms can be found in mythological texts. The most important of these texts is the myth of 'the moon god who fell from heaven', written in both Hatti and Hittite.

Texts

There are no documents written entirely in Hatti, in which its speakers wrote their own language. All the testimonies of this language are found as part of larger inscriptions in the Hittite language, in the middle of which appear some texts in Hatti. For this reason, the language is known only in fragments, and the texts in Hatti are predominantly religious, written by Hittite priests, between the fourteenth century BC. C. and XIII a. These passages are usually accompanied by the explanation "the priest now speaks in Hattili".

Among the documents from Hattusa, those containing texts or fragments in Hatti are those cataloged between CTH 725 and CTH 745. OF these CTH 728, 729, 731, 733 and 736 are bilingual texts in Hatti and Hittite. CTH 737 incantation in hatti used for the festival of Nerik. An important text is the bilingual story of 'The Moon God Who Fell from Heaven'. In addition, there are texts in Hatti from Sapinuwa, which in 2004 were still unpublished.

Lexicon

Words known in the Hatti language include:

Hatic forms the collective plural by adding the prefix fa-: ašaf 'god'/ fa-šaf & #39;gods. While ordinary plurals are formed with the prefix le-: pinu 'niño' / le-pinu 'children'. The genitive case was formed with the suffix -(u)n: fur 'earth' /furun 'of the earth'). Some linguists such as Polomé and Winter maintain that the accusative case was the one marked by the prefix es- (the example given by them is ess-alep 'word'), although other authors propose that es- is a possessive pronominal clitic for the third person ('sus').

Writing

The Hittites used a Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script for their own language, and applied the same system to fragments written in Hatti. In this Hittite version of cuneiform all sibilants are written using the Akkadian phonogram used for Š