La lingua degli Ittiti

In 1916, the Czech scholar Bedřich Hrozný found the key to reading the clay tablets written in cuneiform characters discovered in the archaeological site of Hattuša, near the modern village of Boğazköy in Turkey. The interpretation of the Hittite cuneiform script marked the beginning of the Hittitology and gave rise to the knowledge of a hitherto unknown Indo-European population, which developed an original culture in the second millennium BC. The reality that emerged from the reading of the texts was totally unexpected: the Hittites, although being Indo-European, were perfectly integrated into the Near-Eastern world, reworking and adapting to their needs the main cultural characteristics of other peoples with which they came into contact. The Hittites and their culture are of a surprising modernity: just think of their openness to the new, in every cultural domain, from the religious to the linguistic. The Hittite world was really free of all kinds of barriers! At the end of the 13th century, no less than three languages were spoken and written in their capital, Hattuša: Hittite, which they called “the language of Neša”, the Luwian, also an Indo-European language closely related to Hittite, and Hurrian, whose origins are unknown; however, the tablets discovered show that at least eight different languages were used throughout the history of the Reign of Hatti! From a religious point of view, there were no limits to the reception of new gods into their pantheon: their oaths were indeed addressed to the “thousand gods of Hatti”. The Hittite texts are a constant surprise: the modern reader will find clues that refer to myths of the classical world, or hints at what the Homeric texts have handed down to us. Parallels with the much more well-known classical languages, Greek and Latin, cannot be overlooked in the language itself, since Hittite is genealogically related to them, and preserves several archaisms that are invaluable for the reconstruction of their prehistory. One hundred years after Hrozný’s interpretation of the Hittite language, in the current historical moment, the time has come for this civilization and its culture to leave the restricted circle of academics and be presented to a wider audience of readers by means of the knowledge of their language, the only key to enter this world and come to know these ancient people. The volume offers a clear and exhaustive picture of the Hittite language, conceived to be used especially by non-specialist readers. The different topics dealt with are presented in a simple way, while still maintaining scientific correctness, and they are illustrated through examples taken from original texts. The grammar is also supplemented with an anthology of texts exemplifying the various textual genres, with the aim of stimulating a direct and autonomous approach to the documents, through a guided reading of the texts and an essential vocabulary. Furthermore, the copies of the texts in cuneiform characters are also included, together with some plates containing the most frequent syllabic signs, in order to provide the reader with a first basic introduction to the cuneiform writing. Finally, in the selected bibliography at the end of the volume the reader will find information about grammars, dictionaries, editions of texts, as well as general reference works on the history and civilization of the Hittites.