Together with their southern neighbours, the Mitanni, the Hittites acknowledged Aryan (Indo-Iranian) deities such as Mitra, Varuna, Indra and used names with Aryan roots. Both appear on the historical stage in the Upper Euphrates basin, the Hittites to the north of the Euphrates and the Mitanni to the south. At different periods, they were allies or rivals. The land of the Hittites was called Katpatuka (Cappadocia) during Persian Achaemenian times (675 - 330 BCE). Strabo in the first century ACE, noted that the magi of Cappadocia "... have Pyraetheia (fire-houses), noteworthy enclosures...", the first record of Zoroastrian fire temples. Katpatuka / Cappadocia - the old Hittite land - could have been the western extent of Ranghaya, the sixteenth and last Aryan land in the Vendidad - the last land mentioned before the Avestan canon was closed.
While the Hittites may have been immigrants to the land of Hatti, they peacefully adapted to the language, custom and religion of the aboriginal Hattians with whom they enjoyed a mutually profitable and amicable relationship. They brought with them various technologies including Metal Age manufacturing methods such as the smelting and casting of iron.
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The royal Hittite archives at Bogazkale contain over 10,000 tablets whose cuneiform inscriptions are written in eight different languages:
1. Hittite (most of the texts were written in the Hittite language which the authors called Nesili (or Kanesili). The earliest examples of Nesili were found in the Hittite settlement of Nesa, also known as Kanesh (near Kültepe and about 20 km southwest of modern Kayseri) in the record of trade between Assyrian merchants and the 'land of Hatti'),
4. Native Hattian (the native language of the Hittite lands, Hatti, and a language completely different from Hittite. It was used for religious texts only),
2. Mitanni,
3. Native Hurrian (the native language of neighbouring Mitanni. Significantly, the Hurrian language was used for non-official texts to a far greater extent than native Hattian, Luwian or Palaic, leaving the impression that native Hattian was used only for religious purposes in the same manner Sanskrit and Avestan are used today),
5. Akkadian (the international language of the region that was used for treaties and state letters),
6. Luwian (also spelt Luvian - a language closely related to Hittite and spoken in Arzawa and Kizzuwatna to the southwest of Hatti - an area called Luwia and later Lydia. By the end of the Hittite Empire, the population of most of the Hittite Empire spoke Luwian dialects),
7. Palaic (Palaumnili - language of the people of Pala who appear to have lived to the west of the Hittite core area between modern Kayseri and Sivas), and
8. Sumerian.
The use of eight different languages spoken throughout the region is significant and indicate the intended readership of both local and international visitors to the Hittite capital. Of the eight languages, for their official documents, the Hittite kings used only the Nesili Hittite and Akkadian.
In multi-lingual texts found in Hittite locations, passages written in the Hittite language are preceded by the phrase "in Nesumnili ( i.e. language of the people of Neša, otherwise called Nesili, Nasili or Nisili)". In one case, the label is "in Kanisumnili (i.e. language of the people of Kanesh)". The religious native Hattian texts are introduced with the phrase "in Hatilli (i.e. language of the people of Hatti).
In the Boğazkale archives, native Hurrian is used frequently for a wide range of non-official texts such as those on rituals and even the Epic of Gilgamesh - more so than native Hattian. Native Hurrian texts have been found throughout the region. One such text dated to 1750 BCE was found at Tell Hariri (ancient Mari), a Middle Euphrates site, and another at Ras Shamra (Ugarit) on the Syrian coast indicating Hurrian i.e. Mitanni influence in the region preceded the rise of Hittite power under Suppiluliuma. A similar language to Hurrian is the language of Urartu located to the east of the Hittite lands at the headwaters of the Euphrates and around Lake Van. According to the literature (cf. The Hittites by O. R. Gurney, Penguin Books 1981), The Hurrians were migrants to the Upper Euphrates and Habur basin from the Elburz Mountains east across the Taurus Mountains from about 2300 BCE onwards.
For a script, the Hittites used the cuneiform system and hieroglyphs. The cuneiform Hittites texts were written on clay tablets that were discovered during excavations at the end of the 19th century CE. Identification of the language had to wait until 1915 when Czech linguist Bedřich Hrozný,[1] after examining tablets that had been brought to Vienna from the Istanbul Museum, identified the language of the Hittite tablets as Indo-European. He published his findings in a 1917 book titled Die Sprache der Hethiter. In 1951 a comprehensive Hittite grammar was presented in a book titled A Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language by Edgar H. Sturtevant.
As evidenced by the records discovered, the Hittites had a highly developed literature consisting of stories, religious texts, historical records, legal system and legal documents.
[1] Bedřich (Friedrich) Hrozný (Czech: [ˈbɛdr̝ɪx ˈɦrozniː] May 6, 1879 – December 12, 1952) was a Czech orientalist and linguist. He deciphered the ancient Hittite language, identified it as an Indo-European language and laid the groundwork for the development of Hittitology.
In 1905, following excavations in Palestine, he became Professor at the University of Vienna.
In 1906, at Hattusa (modern Boğazkale, about 200 km east of Ankara) a German expedition found the archives of the Hittite kings in cuneiform, but in an unknown language. While on active duty in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I, Hrozný published in 1917 a description of the language showing that it belonged to the Indo-European family.[1]
In 1925 Hrozný led a Czech archaeological team that discovered 1000 cuneiform tablets containing contracts and letters of Assyrian merchants in the Turkish village of Kültepe, and excavated the nearby ancient Hittite city of Kanesh.
Later in his life, he tried to decipher the hieroglyphic script used by the Hittites and scripts used in ancient India and Crete, but failed in his effort. From 1919 to 1952, he was a Professor of cuneiform research and ancient Oriental history at the Charles University in Prague. After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia he was made rector of the Charles University.
To solve the mystery about the Hittite language, Bedřich Hrozný used two sentences that appeared in a text that reads NINDA - an ezzatteni watar - ma ekutteni. It was known at that time that the ideogram for NINDA meant bread in Sumerian. Hrozný thought that the suffix -an was perhaps the Hittite accusative. Then, he assumed that the second word, ed-/-ezza, had something to do with the bread and assumed that it could be the verb to eat. The comparison with the Latin edo, the English eat and the German essen led to the assumption that NINDA - an ezzatteni means "you will eat bread". In the second sentence, Hrozný was struck by the word watar that has similarities to the English water and German Wasser. The last word of the second sentence, ekutteni, had the stem eku-, which seemed to resemble the Latin aqua (water). So, he translated the second sentence as "you will drink water". Using these insights, Hrozný continued his work and was able to publish the Hittite grammar in 1917
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