Topic Page: Anatolian languages Summary Article: Anatolian languages From The Columbia Encylopedia {Gn ate1ean), subfamily ofthe Indo-European family of languages (see The Indo-European Family of Languages, table; the term “Anatolian Tanguages” is also used to refer to all languages, Indo-European and non-Indo-Eurapean, that were spoken in Anatoli in ancient times. The progress made in the identieation, decipherment and analysis ofthe Indo-Furopean Anatolian languages from extant texts ames much o 20th-century Scholarship. These Anatolian languages were spoken in Anatolia, or Asia Minor, from about the 2d millennium &C. and gradualy became extinct during the first few centuries AD. They include Cuneiform Hittite, Hieroglyphic Hitt, Luwian (also called Luvian or Lush), Palaic Lycian, and Lydian. ‘The Anatolian languages are the tongues of Indo-European-speaking invaders of Anatolia and became mixed to some extent with indigenous languages of the ragion. Much of the vocabulary of the Anatolian languages was apparently borrowed from these native tongues, but their grammar continued to be essentialy Indo-European ‘The principal known member ofthe Anatolian division ofthe Indo-European familys Hitt, the tongue ofthe Hittites, who entered and conquered much of Anatolia early in the 2d millennium 8.C. The oldest surviving written records of Hittite, dated at about the 1Sth or 14th cent. .C, are among the earliest extant remains of any Indo-European language. From <1500to 1200 B.C, Hittite was written both in cuneiform (a system of writing taken cover fram Mesopotamia) and in hieroglyphic (3 form of picture writing unrelated tothe hieroglyphs of Egypt). Ar the fall ofthe Mitte Empire (1200 8) the use of cuneiform ceased, but writing in heroglyphics continued until the 7th cent, B.C. Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic Hitite are Separate but closely related languages. ‘Anear relative of Hittite was Luwian the Anatolian language ofthe now extinct Luwian people. Dominant in a large part of S Anatolia during the period ofthe Hitite Empire, uwvian was writen in cuneiform, and it surviving dacuments go back tothe 14th cent. 8. In areas of N Anatolia, Palaie flourshed Also close to Hite, twas written in cune'form, Grammatical features common to Hittte Luwian, and Pasi include: twa genders, one of \which combines masculine and feminine as 9 comman gender and the other of which is neuter: two moods, indicative and imperative, the fist of which has present and a preterit tense and two voices, active and middle, Lycian language of SW Anatolia for which there are writen records dated from about the Sth to th cent. .C, may have been a continuation of Luwian Lycian was written in a form of the Greek alphabet, a5 was Lydian. Lydian was spoken in W Anatolia, andthe surviving written records date from about the Sth to 4th cent. BC ‘See EH. Sturtevant: E A, Hahn. A Comparative Gramma ofthe Hittite Language (2d ed. 195%}: Friedrich, 3, Extinct Languages te. 1957, repr. 1971}