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Article: Luwians and their script.
- Article from:
- Calliope
- Article date:
- May 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Carus Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Hittite is an Indo-European language. As such, it is related not only to ancient languages--such as Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit--but also to modern languages--including English, Russian, Spanish, and German. The original "mother" language, Proto-Indo-European, has never been found. It was probably spoken around 4000 B.C. on the steppes of southern Russia, north of the Black Sea. Of all Indo-European languages Hittite is the oldest we know. Therefore, it should most closely resemble Proto-Indo-European.
Sometime around 2500 B.C., a group of people split off from this "mother" group and moved into ancient Anatolia, the country we now call Turkey. Whether they came ...