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The Hittite Language of Boghaz Keui

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

After a delay of many years certain of the cuneiform texts discovered by the German excavating expedition to Boghaz Keui in 1907 have been published during the War (30 wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichung der Deutschen Orient-Gesettschaft: Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi, parts i and ii—the third part has not yet reached foreign scholars; Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1916). It has therefore become possible to attack the problem of decipherment with a fair show of success, and also to estimate the value of such attempts at it as have already been made. Just before the War Professor Delitzsch published a number of lexical fragments, in which the Hittite words are given with their Assyrian and Sumerian equivalents, and it is from these that every scientific attempt at decipherment must start. The cuneiform originals which were transliterated by Professor Delitzsch are to be found in part i of the Keilschrifttexte.

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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1920

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References

page 51 note 1 Na-uwar is “to send”, na-khkh-uwar “to cause to send”. The connexion of watar with ut-tar, however, is very doubtful, since the root of ut-tar is ut or ud, wliich is really of Indo-European origin (Skr. vad, Gk. ὑδέω). Watar, consequently, may be an adverb.

page 52 note 1 It is possible that tagâs, also written dagâs, is the Hittite word for “water”, since in one of the texts published by Boissier (Babyloniaca, iv, 4Google Scholar) we read: eku-zi dagân kuit (?)-gan ûl lakhû[wai] pakhkhas-ta nukuanzi iyan GIS khukhupal-MES seir apâsa takhui nu AN. Manmagan dagân-ma kuis-ki arkha lakhuwâi, “he drinks, but the water (?) he does not pour out; with fire he consumes (?) what has been done in regard to the …, and he … to the god. Next the water (?) also some one must pour away.” In ohe following paragraph the khukhupalli (which are made of wood) are ordered to be “filled with wine”. According to Hrozný, dagan-zipas is found as the equivalent of KI, “the earth.” But is it only zipas of which KI is the equivalent?

page 52 note 2 Hittite 2 is older than d, not conversely.

page 52 note 3 I take this signification from Hrozný.

page 53 note 1 KI-LIB-BE = Sutnerian garas “omen”. But the ideographs may have their more common signification of “camp” (Sum. karas), since “to make a camp” is astrologically used of the moon.

page 53 note 2 In Hrozný, H.K.B., p. 114, khingan occurs in connexion witli pankus, which the Vocabularies explain by alkakâtum “courses” of priests. Akkanzi follows in the next line. Khinganiya-war is translated melultu “jubilee” in the Vocabularies.

page 54 note 1 I have assumed in the above that Professor Hrozný is right in translating eku “to drink”. But there are serious difficulties in the way. In an unpublished text ekuzzi interchanges with akuwanzi, which would, therefore, have the same meaning. But neither eku nor aku is given in the Vocabularies as the words signifying “to drink”. These are selûwar and isparri-ya-uwar, the latter of which is construed with dagân, on which see above, in an unpublished text—nu (GIS) la-akh-khar-nu-uz-zi da-ya-a-an is-pa-ra-an-zi, “he drinks the water through a spout(?).” Lakhkharnu is a compound of lakhkhu “to pour out”, and arnu as in kutassan arnuwar, which, according to the Vocabularies, signified “to put a question”.

page 54 note 2 The simple ziyan “face” is found in the inscriptions.

page 56 note 1 So in Hrozný, H.K.B., p. 212, 1. 81: mânna-wa-mu zakhkhiya uwasi nuwatta ûl kuwat-qa ammel A-SAG kueri, “and if you come to battle with me no portion of my land shall be yours.”

page 60 note 1 The signification of kuwabi is fixed by such passages as nu-za-gan ana (GIS GU-ZA ABI-YA kuwabi êskhat, “and then on the throne of my father I seated myself in succession.”

page 60 note 2 In some of the ritual texts ME has its theological meaning of “prophesying”. Its equivalence with the Hittite root da, which has been already noted by Hrozný, shows that the latter has nothing to do with the I.E. “to give”, as he supposes, nor with dha “to place”, as I once suggested. Accordingly, nat-gan khassî dâi is literally “and this he ordains for the king”, dakhkhun “I decreed”, i.e. “assigned to”.

page 61 note 1 Yani(s) as the phonetic reading of GESTIN furnishes an explanation of the colophon of the inscription I have published in the JRAS., 10, 1912, p. 1036Google Scholar, where the third character in the second line is not a corrupt form of qi but GESTIN used phonetically. The character to be supplied is more probably AMEL than SARRU, so that the translation will be: “Of Arnuanda(s) the Khuotiyanis, the contents of the House of Stone Monuments.”

page 61 note 2 Esari has nothing to do with the root asa “to sit”, which is vouched for by the Vocabularies. ANA GIS GU-ZA ABI-SU esat is “he occupied” (or perhaps, “mounted to) the throne of his father”; nu-za, KHAR-SAG Askharpaian kuis ALU Gasgas esan khurta, “then the city of the Kaskians which had taken mount Askharpaias in (literally, as) occupation.” In the Vocabularies ês-zi is translated [i]su “to have”, and “a day-labourer” is UT-KAM-as aniyan kuis êssai, “he who receives a day's reckoning.” On the other hand, the root ês corresponds with our substantive verb in a phrase like ALU Iyaruwatas ALU-as sa MAT ALU Barya êsta, “Iyaruwattas is a city of Barga”; while AKHU-MES-SU AMEL-MES gaena-ssis AMEL-MES khassana-ssas û ZAB-MES-SU taruppantes eser means “his brothers, his priests, his royal family, and his soldiers were assembling”, and in the Vocabularies the Assyrian tukultu is rendered by makhkhat esuwar “to stand behind”. Either two verbs, es and ês, one signifying “to be” and the other “to have”, have been confused together, or verbal forms borrowed from Indo-European have been confounded with forms of native origin. Perhaps the key to the difficulty is to be found in the Arzawan letters, where êstu is followed by an accusative: SEG-in ês-tu “may they have prosperity”. Similarly in Greek ἔχω has acquired the sense of “to be”.

The city of Iyaruwattas, by the way, appears to be the Yarimuta or Yariwuta of the Babylonian and Tel el-Amarna inscriptions, possibly Qarmatia in the geographical list of Thothmes III, and certainly Armuthia in classical geography, which Tomkins identifies with Khan Karamâta on the descent from the Beilan Pass to the plain of Umk.

page 61 note 3 The ideograph MAR means “a gift”. Minu must be the Assyrian mînu. In K. B. ii, 2, Obv. i, 28, we have minumarra, which shows that the whole compound had been borrowed by the Hittite scribes. Hrozný refers it to the Latin minus!

page 63 note 1 Between a Vannic amas-tu-bi, “I made piecemeal of”—a compound of amas “pieces” and the verb tu or du—and a Hittite akkus-kit the parallelism is exact. A good example of the results of Professor Hrozný's “Indo-Germanic” obsession is his translation of the word khameskhanza in the historical inscriptions, which he refers to Skt. samâ “summer” or Lat. hiems “winter”. The Vocabularies, however, tell us that khamen-kuwar is the Ass. [ku]zzuru “to be gathered together”, so that makhkhan-ma khames-khanza kisat must mean, not “when the spring came”, but “after that mobilization took place”.

page 63 note 2 In K. B. ii, 7, Obv. 17, mas-mas takes the place of ZUN, the ideograph of the plural: AN-MES TAK-ZI-QI-mas-mas, “the gods belonging to the sacred stone.”

page 64 note 1 Unidentified ideograph.

page 65 note 1 The Assyrian equivalent of lingain, etc., is nies itâni, literally “the lifting up (of the hand to) the gods”. Lien-gaowar would be literally “to sanctify non(-deceits)”, gaowar being related to gaennas “priests” (see above, p. 61). Gaennas, gaenas is the κανειν of the Greek Lydian inscriptions, the kuanis of the Hittite hieroglyphic texts, written in the Ördek-burnu inscription and borrowed by Hebrew, i.e. Canaanite, under the form of kohen.

page 65 note 2 The word occurs in one of my fragments: [kha]-an-ti-i ni-an-zi, and in the next line kha-an-ti-i kab-bu-[wanzi] “he counts one”.

page 65 note 3 “Four” is mi and kar “ten”, while “six” is probably nati-ni. In Vannic suši, tara, and sis-ti are “one”, “two”, and “three”. The Hittite word for “seven” must be is-khan, since in the second Arzawan letter the Tel el-Amarna formula “seven times seven I prostrate myself” is rendered iskhani-ttara-tar iya-ueni, “we perform the sevenfold,” i.e. the ceremony of the sevenfold prostration.

page 66 note 1 The numerals occur in the rompound aika-wartanna “in two layers”, etc.

page 68 note 1 Iron images of the sacred wells, who were “daughters” of Tessub, were made by the city of Mamnantas, according to K.B. ii, 13, Obv. 21–4. The eldest was called “the excellence (dub) of ‘the well Altannis, the Komanian’” (Qumayannis), while another well or spring bore the name of Tarkhana(s) from the god Tarkhu. The river Siga-sigas was connected with them, but how the mutilation of the tablet prevents us from knowing. Siga.-sigas is written Sîkaasikas in K.B. ii, p. 44, 1. 25, where Altannis is stated to be “its excellence” (dub-sas).

page 68 note 2 Hittite z later becomes ṭ, as in Meliṭu (Malatiyeh) from Meliz. Hence, if Hrozný is right in identifying the Indo-European locative suffix -d with the Hittite -z, it must have been borrowed from Hittite after the z had become a dental.

page 69 note 1 According to K.B. i, 57, 3, atam-AN ZE, “the child of the storm-god,” is a synonym of zurratti.

page 70 note 1 In Hrozný, H.K.B. p. 72, kunanzi is used of killing a pig.

page 70 note 2 In the Hittite translation of an Assyrian astrological tablet, published in K.B. ii, 19, Obv. 10, MAT GAL ana MAT TUR khuis-[nut] represents the Assyrian “a great country shall serve (ikannus) a small one” (see Virolleaud, Astrologie Chaldéenne (Adad), p. 8, 1. 14).Google Scholar

page 71 note 1 Mursilis states that when his father died the throne was seized by a boy, who MAT Khatti ZAG-ZUN MAT Khattiya-wa ûl tinuzi, “did not inherit the frontiers of the land of Khattu or the Hittite country” (Hrozný, H.K.B. p. 168). As to uddê, King Telibinus says: [nu uddê khurnin-ki ?-] is-kit nu uddê arkha tarranut, “so the lands he attacked, the lands he devastated”; nu uddê maniyakhkhes-kir, “so the lands became tributary.” Hrozný quotes a passage: mân abêdani udde uddê mân damêdani MAT-e, “if their estates or other countries” (H.K.B. p. 96).

page 71 note 2 According to the Vocabularies the verb warsi means “to exist” (Assyrian basu).

page 71 note 3 A compound of pais (“giving”) and ga, gao, for which see above, p. 65. The verb has no connexion with pasgauwar, which the Vocabularies interpret “to erect” from pasgas “a stake”.

page 71 note 4 Related to kartamm-iyau-wanza (compounded with iya “make”), which seems to have something to do with an oracle (K.B. ii, 2; Rev. ii, 44; iii, 25).

page 72 note 1 Kuit-mân is used in the sense of “when”, Ass. adi in the Vocabularies. Mân-kuit would be literally “this it is (that)”. -a is the suffix of the copulative conjunction.

page 72 note 2 Notice that the words for “father” and “mother” are Asianic, and not the Indo - European. The suffixed -s is the possessive pronoun.

page 72 note 3 Kutun may be related to the kutassan of the Vocabularies: kutassen arnuwar = Ass. uzzuzu “to put a question”.

page 72 note 4 In the Vocabularies sâkki is translated idu.

page 73 note 1 Uemiya is the Hittite representative of the ideograph KAR “to carry away” (see above, p. 63).

page 73 note 2 Literally “fixedly”.

page 73 note 3 There is a word anta with short initial vowel which seems to signify “a consort”, but it makes no sense here.

page 73 note 4 Khalzis-ti-n is a 3rd pers. pi. of a “verb” compounded with ti or te (like sidis-tu in Vannic). The verb is shown by a comparison of passages to signify “to summon”, “call”. In H.K.B. p. 180, nu-wa-mu-za TUR-lan khalzessesta is, “And against me you summoned a youngster.”

page 73 note 5 In K.B. ii, p. 45, 1. 30, we have: KÛ-zi NAK-zi kha-kan-zi GESTIN, “they eat, they drink, they enjoy themselves with wine,” while a corresponding passage (p. 48. 1. 10) has: III GAR-GI-RA I DUK khu-ub-bar KAS AMEL-MES kha-kan-zi GESTIN-ya-as, “three food offerings, one barrel of beer, the men enjoy themselves with wine.”

page 74 note 1 With incapsulated pronoun.

page 74 note 2 KA “gate” cannot be used ideographically here, but must have some phonetic value derived from its name in Hittite.

page 74 note 3 Cf. kusata TUR-SAL-ti in the first Arzawan letter.

page 75 note 1 Cf. the first Arzawan letter: kissarissi Arsappa “by the hand of Arsappa”.

page 75 note 2 In the Vocabularies dameda is translated “rich”.

page 75 note 3 The grammar of this passage is not clear to-me.

page 75 note 4 Ass. mikhirti.

page 76 note 1 Khanteit.

page 76 note 2 “She who is attached to the mother(-goddess).”

page 76 note 3 Sat can hardly be the possessive pronoun, as it is separated from akhkhati. Possibly it signifies “these things” (cf. Rev. 16).

page 76 note 4 The passages containing mit indicate a signification like “together with”. The word has nothing to do with the enclitic he, “a second time,” “again,” with which Hrozny would identify it.

page 77 note 1 ûl-kuit-á khurninkan, literally “and it was not (that) I opposed”.

page 77 note 2 The Hittite kissan.

page 77 note 3 In V.R. xx, 4, 57, li is given as equivalent to atta “thou”, and in xx, 35, la as equivalent to and li to suatum in languages that are presumably Asiatic.

page 77 note 4 Qati is the Ass. qali “my hand”, which came to be used in Hittite with the meaning “my hand-writing”, and to be conjugated as a verb. It must be distinguished from another domesticated Ass. word qatamma, abbreviated to qatam, with the particle be “again” often attached to it, which is from the root “in front”.

page 78 note 1 Or perhaps “lock”.

page 78 note 2 Kistas cannot be “silver” as I formerly conjectured, as this we now know was khattus in Hittite.

page 78 note 3 Arias or aris in Hittite.

page 78 note 4 Cf. watar-nakhkhanza, which, according to the Vocabularies, signified “an ambassador” (mûeru).

page 79 note 1 In an unpublished text eeskhan-ta interchanges with istu ZAL. DUGGA “with oil”. Eeskhar, however, signifies “white blood”.

page 79 note 2 The Ass. uknu was borrowed according to K.B. ii, p. 22, 1. 25.

page 79 note 3 “House” was biras in Hittite (Lydian bira). The Hittite suffixed pronoun is attached to the Ass. verb imakh[kh]ar.

page 79 note 4 Ass. qadu.

page 79 note 5 Literally “assigns”.

page 80 note 1 Ass. unutu.

page 80 note 2 The final -z is the Hittite locative corresponding with the Ass. ina. Instead of maki we could read kuki.

page 80 note 3 Borrowed by Assyrian under the form of seras, tîrôsh in Hebrew. As we have seen, the usual word for “wine” in Hittite was yanis, but another word was also employed, uiniyandas, which is a derivative, probably from the word for “vine”. Uiniyandas is found in one of the tablets published by Boissier: khalzissan-zi-ma [ui]niyandan u-i-ni-ya-an-da-an eku-zi, “he calls also for wine; he tastes (?) the wine.” Uintar is found in the same inscription.

page 81 note 1 Hrozný quotes a passage: DUK ME-E sîkhillas u-i-te-e-ui, from which it would appear that uitêni is equivalent to the Ass. “water”. On the other hand -nas is an adjectival suffix, and the stem uete signifies “to bring”.

page 81 note 2 Sanizzi or saneizzi may signify “set on fire”, or something similar. Kinanta, also written kinanda, is an adverb like unuwanta or ziyanta (“in the face of”). So gananda “for ever” in the Arzawan letters.

page 83 note 1 Cf. in an unpublished text: AN-as-sa istu GÛ-GIG khu-i-sa-wa-z wa-a-ku-e-en, “and the gods taste(?) the flesh in the chaldron.” Has wâku any connexion with aku (p. 54)?