Luwian ( ), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from Luwiya (also spelled Luwia or Luvia) – the name of the region in which the Luwians lived. Luwiya is attested, for example, in the Hittite laws.Law number 21 of the Code of the Nesilim says, "If anyone steal a slave of a Luwian from the land of Luwia, and lead him here to the land of Hatti, and his master discover him, he shall take his slave only."
The two varieties of Luwian are known after the scripts in which they were written: Cuneiform Luwian (CLuwian) and Hieroglyphic Luwian (HLuwian). There is no consensus as to whether these were a single language or two closely related languages.
Classification
Several other Anatolian languages – particularly Carian, Lycian, and Milyan (also known as Lycian B or Lycian II) – are now usually identified as related to Luwian – and as mutually connected more closely than other constituents of the Anatolian branch.Anna Bauer, 2014, Morphosyntax of the Noun Phrase in Hieroglyphic Luwian, Leiden, Brill NV, pp. 9–10. This suggests that these languages formed a sub-branch within Anatolian. Some linguists follow Craig Melchert in referring to this broader group as Luwic, whereas others refer to the "Luwian group" (and, in that sense, "Luwian" may mean several distinct languages). Likewise, Proto-Luwian may mean the common ancestor of the whole group, or just the ancestor of Luwian (normally, under tree-naming conventions, were the branch to be called Luwic, its ancestor should be known as Proto-Luwic or Common Luwic; in practice, such names are seldom used). Luwic or Luwian (in the broad sense of the term), is one of three major sub-branches of Anatolian, alongside Hittite and Palaic.
As Luwian has numerous archaisms, it is regarded as important to the study of Indo-European languages (IE) in general, the other Anatolian languages, and the Bronze Age Aegean. These archaisms are often regarded as supporting the view that the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had three distinct sets of velar consonants:Melchert 1987 plain velars, palatovelars, and labiovelars. For Melchert, PIE → Luwian z (probably ); → k; and → ku (probably ). Luwian has also been enlisted for its verb kalut(t)i(ya)-, which means "make the rounds of" and is probably derived from *kalutta/i- "circle".Melchert 1993, p. 99 It has been arguedMelchert, p.c., reported in Rieken 2012, p. 5 that this derives from a proto-Anatolian word for "wheel", which in turn would have derived from the common word for "wheel" found in all other Indo-European families. The wheel was invented in the 5th millennium BC and, if kaluti does derive from it, then the Anatolian branch left PIE after its invention (so validating the Kurgan hypothesis as applicable to Anatolian). However, kaluti need not imply a wheel and so need not have been derived from a PIE word with that meaning, and the IE words for a wheel may well have arisen in those other IE languages after the Anatolian split.
Geographic and chronological distribution Luwian was among the languages spoken during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC by groups in central and western Anatolia and northern Syria.Melchert 2003. The earliest Luwian texts in cuneiform transmission are attested in connection with the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna in southeastern Anatolia, as well as a number of locations in central Anatolia. Beginning in the 14th century BC, Luwian-speakers came to constitute the majority in the Hittite capital Hattusa.Yakubovich 2010:307 It appears that by the time of the collapse of the Hittite Empire ca. 1180 BC, the Hittite king and royal family were fully bilingual in Luwian. Long after the extinction of the Hittite language, Luwian continued to be spoken in the Neo-Hittite states of Syria, such as Milid and Carchemish, as well as in the central Anatolian kingdom of Tabal that flourished in the 8th century BC.Melchert 2003, pp. 147–51
A number of scholars in the past attempted to argue for the Luwian homeland in western Anatolia. According to James Mellaart, the earliest Indo-Europeans in northwest Anatolia were the horse-riders who came to this region from the north and founded Demircihöyük (Eskişehir Province) in Phrygia c. 3000 BC. They were allegedly ancestors of the Luwians who inhabited Troy II, and spread widely in the Anatolian peninsula.Christoph Bachhuber (2013), James Mellaart and the Luwians: A Culture-(Pre)history, He cited the distribution of a new type of wheel-made pottery, Red Slip Wares, as some of the best evidence for his theory. According to Mellaart, the proto-Luwian migrations to Anatolia came in several distinct waves over many centuries. The recent detailed review of Mellaart's claims suggests that his ethnolinguistic conclusions cannot be substantiated on archaeological grounds.Christoph Bachhuber (2013), James Mellaart and the Luwians: A Culture-(Pre)history, p. 284
Other arguments were advanced for the extensive Luwian presence in western Anatolia in the late second millennium BC. In the Old Hittite version of the Hittite Code, some, if not all, of the Luwian-speaking areas were called Luwiya. Widmer (2007) has argued that the Mycenaean term ru-wa-ni-jo, attested in Linear B, refers to the same area.P. Widmer, "Mykenisch ru-wa-ni-jo 'Luwier'", Kadmos 45 (2007), 82–84, cited on Palaeolexicon: Word study tool of ancient languages, but the stem *Luwan- was recently shown to be non-existent.Gander 2015: 474 In a corrupt late copy of the Hittite Code the geographical term Luwiya is replaced with ArzawaSee, e.g., Bryce in Melchert 2003:29–31; Singer 2005:435; Hawkins 2009:74. a western Anatolian kingdom corresponding roughly with Mira and the Seha River Land.Although Yakubovich (2010) has argued that a chain of scribal error and revision led to this substitution, and that Luwiya was not coterminous with Arzawa, but was further east in the area of the Konya Plain; see Yakubovich 2010:107–17. Therefore, several scholars shared the view that Luwian was spoken—to varying degrees—across a large portion of western Anatolia, including Troy (Wilusa), the Seha River Land (Sēḫa ~ Sēḫariya, i.e., the Greek Hermos river and Kaikos valley), and the Mira-Kuwaliya kingdom with its core being the Maeander valley.Watkins 1994; id. 1995:144–51; Starke 1997; Melchert 2003; for the geography Hawkins 1998. In a number of recent publications, however, the geographic identity between Luwiya and Arzawa has been rejected or doubted.Hawkins 2013, p. 5, Gander 2017, p. 263, Matessi 2017, fn. 35 In the post-Hittite era, the region of Arzawa came to be known as Lydia (Assyrian Luddu, Greek Λυδία), where the Lydian language was in use. The name Lydia has been derived from the name Luwiya (Lydian *lūda- < *luw(i)da- < luwiya-, with regular Lydian sound change y > d).Beekes 2003; cf. Melchert 2008b:154. The Lydian language, however, cannot be regarded as the direct descendant of Luwian and probably does not even belong to the Luwic group (see Anatolian languages). Therefore, none of the arguments in favour of the Luwian linguistic dominance in Western Asia Minor can be regarded as compelling, although the issue continues to be debated.
Script and dialects Luwian was split into many dialects, which were written in two different writing systems. One of these was the Cuneiform Luwian which used the form of Old Babylonian cuneiform that had been adapted for the Hittite language. The other was Hieroglyphic Luwian, which was written in a unique native hieroglyphic script. The differences between the dialects are minor, but they affect vocabulary, style, and grammar. The different orthographies of the two writing systems may also hide some differences.Mouton, Alice and Yakubovich, Ilya. "Where did one speak luwili? Geographic and linguistic diversity of Luwian cuneiform texts". In: Journal of Language Relationship, vol. 19, no. 1-2, 2021, pp. 25–53. https://doi.org/10.1515/jlr-2021-191-208
According to Hittitologist Alwin Kloekhorst, Hieroglyphic Luwian may also be known as Empire Luwian or Iron Age Luwian, and is "closely related" to Cuneiform Luwian.Kloekhorst, Alwin. "Anatolian". In: The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective. Edited by Thomas Olander. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. pp. 64, 69. Similarly, Alice Mouton and Ilya Yakubovich separate Luwian into two distinct varieties: cuneiform and hieroglyphic – the latter of a more prestigious and elite use.
Cuneiform Luwian
Cuneiform Luwian (or Kizzuwatna Luwian)Kloekhorst, Alwin. “Anatolian”. In: The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective. Edited by Thomas Olander. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. p. 64. doi:10.1017/9781108758666.005. is the corpus of Luwian texts attested in the tablet archives of Hattusa; it is essentially the same cuneiform writing system used in Hittite.Luwian cuneiform texts are collected in Starke 1985 In Laroche's Catalog of Hittite Texts, the corpus of Hittite cuneiform texts with Luwian insertions runs from CTH 757–773, mostly comprising rituals.Laroche 1971, pp. 35–9 Cuneiform Luwian texts are written in several dialects, of which the most easily identifiable are Kizzuwatna Luwian, Ištanuwa Luwian, and Empire Luwian.Yakubovich 2010, pp. 68–73 The last dialect represents the vernacular of Hattusan scribes of the 14th–13th centuries BC and is mainly attested through Glossenkeil words in Hittite texts.
Compared to cuneiform Hittite, logograms (signs with a set symbolic value) are rare. Instead, most writing is done with the syllabic characters, where a single symbol stands for a vowel, or a consonant-vowel pair (either VC or CV). A striking feature is the consistent use of 'full-writing' to indicate long vowels, even at the beginning of words. In this system a long vowel is indicated by writing it twice. For example, īdi "he goes" is written i-i-ti rather than i-ti, and ānda "in" is written a-an-ta rather than an-ta.
Hieroglyphic Luwian
Hieroglyphic Luwian (luwili) is the corpus of Luwian texts written in a native script, known as Anatolian hieroglyphs.the script has also been called Luwian (or Luvian) hieroglyphs, and (in older publications) Hittite hieroglyphs. A number of Italian scholars use Geroglifico Anatolico, a term that is gaining popularity in English also, with Craig Melchert favouring Anatolian hieroglyphs in recent publications. It is recorded in official and royal seals and a small number of monumental inscriptions.Ilya Yakubovich (2010: 69-70) argues that the term Hieroglyphic Luwian can be applied only to a corpus of texts, since it does not define a particular dialect. It was once thought to be a variety of the Hittite language, and the term "Hieroglyphic Hittite" was formerly used to refer to the language of the same inscriptions, but this term is now obsolete. The dialect of Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions appears to be either Empire Luwian or its descendant, Iron Age Luwian.
The earliest hieroglyphs appear on official and royal seals, dating from the early 2nd millennium BC, but only from the 14th century BC is the unequivocal evidence for a full-fledged writing system. Dutch Hittitologist Willemijn Waal has argued that Luwian Hieroglyphic was already used for writing on wooden writing boards from the early second millennium BC onwards, but the argument has not been widely accepted. The first monumental inscriptions confirmed as Luwian date to the Late Bronze Age, c. 14th to 13th centuries BC. After some two centuries of sparse material, the hieroglyphs resume in the Early Iron Age, c. 10th to 8th centuries BC. In the early 7th century BC, the Luwian hieroglyphic script, by then aged more than 700 years, falls into oblivion.