Please join us this Friday, Nov. 4, at 15:30 in Rosenwald Hall, Rm. 301 for Prof. Petra Goedegebuure’s talk on the effects of linguistic contact in ancient Anatolia and what a particular instance of code-switching might tell us about this linguistic landscape. See abstract below:

“‘The people of Hatti often speak about my match!’ A queen’s code-switching from Hittite to Luwian and its implications for the linguistic landscape of 13th century BCE Anatolia”

What language(s) did the people of Hatti speak? We do not have a single private archive to tell us, a situation which is very different from contemporaneous Mesopotamia and Egypt. The cuneiform tablet royal archives of the Hittite state contain documents in a host of languages: Hittite, of course, but also Luwian, Palaic, Hattic, Akkadian, Sumerian, and Hurrian. These languages played different roles in court society. While Hittite was used for internal affairs, Akkadian was, as the lingua franca, the language of diplomacy. Sumerian was a literary language, used for the advanced education of the scribes. Hurrian, Palaic (a sister language of Hittite), Hattic, and Luwian (another sister language) were mainly used to record rituals, incantations and mythological texts.

Hittite theology required that the gods were addressed in their own language, but since deities kept being imported, it may not be clear to what extent “their” language was, remained, or became spoken by the population. Hittitologists have deduced that the borrowing of Luwian pronouns and an ever-increasing use of Luwian lexemes in Hittite texts during a period of about 200 years points at Hittite-Luwian bilingualism at least at the court, while the use of Luwian in monumental inscription in public spaces would point at Luwian as the language of the population (but there is disagreement about that).

I argue that, in fact, we have direct evidence for Luwian as the language of the people of Hatti, the population. In her communications with Ramses II about his future Hittite bride, Queen Puduḫepa praises her successful union with Ḫattušili III (ca. 1267-1239 BCE):

“When the Sun Goddess of Arinna … made <me> Queen, she matched me with your brother (in Hittite: nu⸗mu ITTI ŠEŠ⸗KA ḫandait), and I produced sons and daughters. As a result, the people of Ḫatti often speak of my (in Luwian:) 𒑱annān tiššān” (KUB 21.38 obv. 57’-59’).

Until now, 𒑱annān tiššān has been translated as “besondere Fruchtbarkeit” (Helck 1963:92) or “experience? and capacity for nurture?” (Hoffner 2009:287). The form tiššān is therefore disconnected from the verb tiššā(i)- “to create, shape, finish, ready, match”. What has not been observed before is that the expression annān tiššā(i)- is a semantic calque of kattan (= ITTI) ḫandai- ‘to match with’. Puduḫepa therefore uses a Luwian expression with the same meaning as the Hittite expression she used earlier: “The people of Hatti often speak about my match!” (not: my capacity for nurture). But why this code-switching?

Puduhepa tells us herself: it is what the people of Hatti say. In other words, the population speaks Luwian.

References:
Helck, Wolfgang. (1963). “Urḫi-Tešup in Ägypten.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 17: 87-97.
Hoffner, Harry A. (2009). Letters from the Hittite Kingdom. Atlanta.