The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia, part of present-day Turkey. The best known Anatolian language is Hittite, which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European language.
Undiscovered until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they are often believed to be the earliest branch to have split from the Indo-European family. Once discovered, the presence of laryngeal consonants ḫ and ḫḫ in Hittite and Luwian provided support for the laryngeal theory of Proto-Indo-European linguistics. While Hittite attestation ends after the Bronze Age, hieroglyphic Luwian survived until the conquest of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms by Assyria, and alphabetic inscriptions in Anatolian languages are fragmentarily attested until the early first millennium AD, eventually succumbing to the Hellenization of Anatolia as a result of Greek colonisation.
Origins
The Anatolian branch is often considered the earliest to have split from the Proto-Indo-European language, from a stage referred to either as Indo-Hittite or "Archaic PIE"; typically a date in the mid-4th millennium BC is assumed. Under the Kurgan hypothesis, there are two possibilities for how the early Anatolian speakers could have reached Anatolia: from the north via the Caucasus, or from the west, via the Balkans; the latter is considered somewhat more likely by Mallory (1989), Steiner (1990), and Anthony (2007). Statistical research by Quentin Atkinson and others using Bayesian inference and glottochronological markers favors an Indo-European origin in Anatolia, though the method's validity and accuracy are subject to debate.
It has been theorized that Cernavodă culture, together with the Sredny Stog culture, was the source of Anatolian languages and introduced them to Anatolia through the Balkans after Anatolian split from the Proto-Indo-Anatolian language, which some linguists and archaeologists place in the area of the Sredny Stog culture.
Classification
Melchert (2012) has proposed the following classification:
Proto-Anatolian
Hittite
Luwic
Luwian
Carian
Milyan
Lycian
Sidetic
Pisidian
Palaic
Lydian
Kloekhorst (2022) has proposed a more detailed classification, with estimated dating for some of the reconstructed stages:
Proto-Anatolian (diverged around the 31st century BC) Proto-Luwo-Lydian Proto-Luwo-Palaic Proto-Luwic (ca. 21st–20th century BC) Proto-Luwian (ca. 18th century BC) Cuneiform Luwian (16th–15th century BC) Hieroglyphic Luwian (13th–8th century BC) Proto-Lyco-Carian Carian (7th–3rd century BC) Milyan (5th century BC) Lycian (5th–4th century BC) Sidetic (5th–2nd century BC) Pisidian (1st–2nd century AD), whose exact position remains uncertain (from a direct descendant or a sister-language of Proto-Lyco-Carian) Proto-Palaic Palaic (16th–15th century BC) Proto-Lydian Lydian (8th–3rd century BC) Proto-Hittite (ca. 2100 BC) Kanišite Hittite (ca. 1935–1710 BC) Hittite (ca. 1650–1180 BC)
Features
Phonology
The phonology of the Anatolian languages preserves distinctions lost in its sister branches of Indo-European. Famously, the Anatolian languages retain the PIE laryngeals in words such as Hittite ḫāran- (cf. Ancient Greek , Lithuanian eręlis, Old Norse ǫrn, PIE *h₃éron-) and Lycian 𐊜𐊒𐊄𐊀 χuga (cf. Latin avus, Old Prussian awis, Archaic Irish ᚐᚃᚔ (avi), PIE *h₂éwh₂s). The three dorsal consonant series of PIE also remained distinct in Proto-Anatolian and have different reflexes in the Luwic languages, e.g. Luwian where *kʷ > ku-, *k > k-, and *ḱ > z-. The three-way distinction in Proto-Indo-European stops (i.e. *p, *b, *bʰ) collapsed into a fortis-lenis distinction in Proto-Anatolian, conventionally written as /p/ vs. /b/. In Hittite and Luwian cuneiform, the lenis stops were written as single voiceless consonants while the fortis stops were written as doubled voiceless, indicating a geminated pronunciation. By the first millennium, the lenis consonants seem to have been spirantized in Lydian, Lycian, and Carian.
The Proto-Anatolian laryngeal consonant *H patterned with the stops in fortition and lenition and appears as geminated -ḫḫ- or plain -ḫ- in cuneiform. Reflexes of *H in Hittite are interpreted as pharyngeal fricatives and those in Luwian as uvular fricatives based on loans in Ugaritic and Egyptian, as well as vowel-coloring effects. The laryngeals were lost in Lydian but became Lycian 𐊐 (χ) and Carian 𐊼 (k), both pronounced [k], as well as labiovelars —Lycian 𐊌 (q), Carian 𐊴 (q)—when labialized. Suggestions for their realization in Proto-Anatolian include pharyngeal fricatives, uvular fricatives, or uvular stops.