Editing Anatolian Languages (section)

== Luwian (Western and Southern Anatolia; ~2000-600 BCE) ==
<u>Luwian</u> (also known as <u>Luvian</u> or <u>Luish</u>) is an extinct language associated with the <u>Luwian</u> people of <u>Anatolia</u> and <u>N Syria</u>. Luwian comes from <u>Luwiya</u> (also spelled ''Luwia'' or ''Luvia'') - the name of the region in which the Luwians lived. The two varieties of the language are known after the scripts in which they were written: <u>Cuneiform Luwian</u> (or <u>Kizzuwatna Luwian</u>, adapted from <u>Old Babylonian</u> cuneiform, the same script used by the <u>Hittites</u>) and <u>Hieroglyphic Luwian</u> (formerly incorrectly known as <u>Hieroglyphic Hittite</u>; a unique, native script); these may have been used to write the same spoken language, or they could represent closely-related variants.

It is believed that several other Anatolian languages, notably <u>Carian</u>, <u>Lycian</u>, and <u>Milyan</u> (all described below) are linked to <u>Luwian</u>, more closely connected to each other than other members of the same filial branch. This likely represents a later-developing sub-branch from which they mutually descended. <u>Luwian</u> has been proposed as one of the likely candidates for the language spoken by the [[Iliad|Trojans]]. According to some, the name of '''Priam''', king of Troy at the time of the Trojan War, is connected to the Luwian compound ''Priimuua'', which meant "exceptionally courageous."

The earliest <u>Luwian</u> texts in cuneiform are attested in connection with the <u>Kingdom of Kizzuwatna</u> in <u>southeastern Anatolia</u>, as well as a number of locations in <u>central Anatolia</u>. Beginning in the 1300s BCE, <u>Luwian</u>-speakers came to constitute the majority in the <u>Hittite</u> capital '''Hattusa'''. It appears that by the time of the collapse of the <u>Hittite Empire</u> ''~''1180 BCE, the royal family were fully fluent in <u>Luwian</u>. Long after the extinction of the <u>Hittite</u> language, <u>Luwian</u> continued to be spoken in the <u>Neo-Hittite</u> states of <u>Syria</u>, such as <u>Milid</u> and <u>Carchemish</u>, as well as in the <u>central Anatolian</u> kingdom of <u>Tabal</u> that flourished in the 8th century BCE. Luwian hieroglyphic texts contain a limited number of lexical borrowings from <u>Hittite</u>, <u>Akkadian</u>, and <u>Northwest Semitic</u>; the lexical borrowings from <u>Ancient Greek</u> are limited to proper nouns.

Luwian possessed two grammatical genders (based on '''animacy'''), and two grammatical number distinctions ('''singular''' or '''plural'''), and three '''persons''' (1st, 2nd, and 3rd, both singular and plural). Some animate nouns could also take a collective plural in addition to the regular numerical plural. Luwian had six '''cases''' (below), though the <u>vocative</u> case occurs rarely in surviving texts and only in the singular. The usual word order is '''SOV''', but words can be moved to the front of the sentence for stress or to start a clause.
{| class="wikitable"
!Case
!Singular
!Plural
|-
!Nominative animate
| -s
| rowspan="2" | -anzi, -inzi
|-
!Accusative animate
| -n, -an
|-
!Nominative/accusative inanimate
| -Ø, -n
| -a, -aya
|-
!Genitive
| -s, -si
|–
|-
!Dative/locative
| -i, -iya, -a
| -anza
|-
!Ablative/instrumental
| colspan="2" | -ati
|}