Heterograms in Hittite, Palaic, and Luwian context

Maksim Kudrinski (Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; kudrinski@gmail.com)

Journal of Language Relationship, № 15/3-4, 2017 - p.238-249

Abstract: The cuneiform, as the primary means of written communication in the kingdom of Hattusa, was used to record texts in Hittite and other languages functioning within its borders. The peculiarity of the Anatolian cuneiform was the written use of the Sumerian and Akkadian lexemes alongside phonetic spellings. Such written units usually, but not always, corresponded to the specific lexemes of the matrix language of the text, and we will refer to them as heterograms. This paper presents a comparison of cuneiform texts in Hittite, Palaic, and Luwian with the focus on the frequency and function of heterograms.

Keywords: cuneiform writing, Hittite language, Luwian language, Palaic language, heterograms

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