This study represents the first comprehensive treatment of the sound system of the Hittite language and its historical development in a quarter-century. It is the very first attempt at a systematic description of the sound systems of all the ancient Indo-European languages of Anatolia. It codifies the results of a generation of collective scholarship which has made some dramatic advances, offers a number of new hypotheses, and frames the problems which remain to be solved. The contents will be of interest to Indo-Europeanists for the new perspectives on the crucial Anatolian subgroup and to scholars of second-millennium Anatolia for the up-to-date descriptions of the extant Indo-European languages of that era.
This title provides comprehensive overviews on archaeological philological, linguistic, and historical issues at the forefront of Anatolian scholarship in the 21st century.
Dispersals and diversification offers linguistic and archaeological perspectives on the disintegration of Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Two chapters discuss the early phases of the disintegration of Proto-Indo-European from an archaeological perspective, integrating and interpreting the new evidence from ancient DNA. Six chapters analyse the intricate relationship between the Anatolian branch of Indo-European, probably the first one to separate, and the remaining branches. Three chapters are concerned with the most important unsolved problems of Indo-European subgrouping, namely the status of the postulated Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Armenian subgroups. Two chapters discuss methodological problems with linguistic subgrouping and with the attempt to correlate linguistics and archaeology. Contributors are David W. Anthony, Rasmus Bjørn, José L. García Ramón, Riccardo Ginevra, Adam Hyllested, James A. Johnson, Kristian Kristiansen, H. Craig Melchert, Matthew Scarborough, Peter Schrijver, Matilde Serangeli, Zsolt Simon, Rasmus Thorsø, Michael Weiss.
This volume collects 33 papers that were presented at the international conference held at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in November 2015 to celebrate the centenary of Bedřich Hrozný’s identification of Hittite as an Indo-European language. Contributions are grouped into three sections, “Hrozný and His Discoveries,” “Hittite and Indo-European,” and “The Hittites and Their Neighbors,” and span the full range of Hittite studies and related disciplines, from Anatolian and Indo-European linguistics and cuneiform philology to Ancient Near Eastern archaeology, history, and religion. The authors hail from 15 countries and include leading figures as well as emerging scholars in the fields of Hittitology, Indo-European, and Ancient Near Eastern studies.
This book presents the most comprehensive coverage of the field of Indo-European Linguistics in a century, focusing on the entire Indo-European family and treating each major branch and most minor languages. The collaborative work of 120 scholars from 22 countries, Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics combines the exhaustive coverage of an encyclopedia with the in-depth treatment of individual monographic studies.
This volume brings together the culmination of philological and linguistic work undertaken by a wide range of experts in the Anatolian languages. The research papers published here cover practically the entire linguistic and chronological spectrum of the Anatolian group of Indo-European languages, without neglecting important interactions with languages from other cultural environments, among which the Semitic group stands out. The publication can therefore be regarded as a valuable contribution to Anatolian and Indo-European studies, reflecting the persistant and sustained efforts of a group of researchers with a broad array of interests, some of whom have many years of research behind them and are well known in the field. They have now been joined by new scholars, who enable us to foresee a promising future for our disciplines.
Covers the major languages, language families, and writing systems attested in the Ancient Near East Filled with enlightening chapters by noted experts in the field, this book introduces Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) languages and language families used during the time period of roughly 3200 BCE to the second century CE in the areas of Egypt, the Levant, eastern Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran. In addition to providing grammatical sketches of the respective languages, the book focuses on socio-linguistic questions such as language contact, diglossia, the development of literary standard languages, and the development of diplomatic languages or “linguae francae.” It also addresses the interaction of Ancient Near Eastern languages with each other and their roles within the political and cultural systems of ANE societies. Presented in five parts, The Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages provides readers with in-depth chapter coverage of the writing systems of ANE, starting with their decipherment. It looks at the emergence of cuneiform writing; the development of Egyptian writing in the fourth and early third millennium BCI; and the emergence of alphabetic scripts. The book also covers many of the individual languages themselves, including Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian, Hittite, Pre- and Post-Exilic Hebrew, Phoenician, Ancient South Arabian, and more. Provides an overview of all major language families and writing systems used in the Ancient Near East during the time period from the beginning of writing (approximately 3200 BCE) to the second century CE (end of cuneiform writing) Addresses how the individual languages interacted with each other and how they functioned in the societies that used them Written by leading experts on the languages and topics The Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages is an ideal book for undergraduate students and scholars interested in Ancient Near Eastern cultures and languages or certain aspects of these languages.
This book presents the most comprehensive coverage of the field of Indo-European Linguistics in a century, focusing on the entire Indo-European family and treating each major branch and most minor languages. The collaborative work of 120 scholars from 22 countries, Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics combines the exhaustive coverage of an encyclopedia with the in-depth treatment of individual monographic studies.
This large, 2-volume work presents more than 50 authoritative articles by leading specialists on a wide variety of ancient, medieval, and modern languages and dialects of the greater Near East and Africa, from a variety of language families. The articles are concise descriptive narratives presenting the basics of the phonology of the languages and dialects, with an emphasis on the phonological processes operative in them. A major goal of the work is a definite statement on the language and/or dialect in question with regard to genetics, typology, and/or universal elements. Of interest to general linguists as well as those specializing in Afro-Asiatic languages.
