Introduction
The terms ‘Anatolian’ and ‘Anatolian languages’ have two different meanings in the present context: a genetic one and a geographical one. Anatolian as a genetic term refers to a branch of the Indo-European language family consisting of the following nine languages (the dates in brackets show the range of their attestation): Hittite (20th–early 12th c.), Palaic (16th–13th c.), Luwian (20th–early 7th c.), Lydian (end 8th/early 7th–3rd c.), Carian (8th–4th/3rd c.), Lycian (Lycian A) (5th–4th c.), Lycian B (Milyan) (5th/4th c.), Sidetic (5th–3rd c.), and Pisidian (1st–3rd c. CE). Hittite, Palaic, and Luwian were written in the Hittite version of cuneiform writing; Luwian was also written in a locally developed hieroglyphic writing. All other languages were written in locally adapted forms of the Greek alphabet. Anatolian as a geographical term refers to all languages once spoken in Anatolia, many of which either belonged to other branches of the Indo-European family (Phrygian, Thracian, Armenian) or were not Indo-European at all (Hattian, Kaškean, Hurrian, Urartean, and the Kartvelian languages). These languages are not treated here.Footnote 1 Accordingly, throughout this chapter ‘Anatolian (languages)’ refers to this specific branch of Indo-European.
It is important to note that some of these languages were more closely related to each other within the Anatolian branch and are subsumed under the term ‘Luwic’: these languages are Luwian, Lycian A, Lycian B, Carian, Sidetic, and Pisidian.Footnote 2 The term ‘Luwic’ is also used when the material cannot be unambiguously classified within these languages, typically in case of widespread onomastic elements, isolated words, or references to local, otherwise unknown languages; this affects the evaluation of the name material in Babylonian sources, too.Footnote 3
The aforementioned date ranges give an impression of the disappearance of these languages and a preliminary answer to the question of which languages should be taken into consideration when evaluating names attested in Babylonian sources. Nevertheless, this is partly misleading, for two reasons. First, the dates refer to the end of the textual transmission of these languages. However, onomastic material and references to local spoken languages continue, occasionally even up to the sixth century CE. Due to a lack of investigations, it is hard to tell whether these names reflect living languages. From a Babylonian point of view, the most important issue is that one can still expect Luwian names well after the early seventh century BCE.Footnote 4
Second, as will be discussed, Anatolia is a distinct onomastic area with strict rules that hardly changed throughout the millennia, and since the languages in cuneiform and hieroglyphic transmission are much better attested than those in alphabetic transmission, it is these languages that frequently provide the missing comparanda to the Anatolian names in Babylonian transmission.Footnote 5
Anatolian Name Material in Babylonian Sources
The Problems of Transmission
Due to the contacts of the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Empires with regions of Anatolian speakers,Footnote 6 Anatolian names are expected and do appear in both Babylonian historical sources and administrative texts. The main problem is their identification, due to the history of research and the nature of the transmission.
Unfortunately, the history of research consists only of scattered investigations. Furthermore, Anatolian linguistics progressed dramatically in the last few decades, which necessitates the re-evaluation of earlier analyses, a task still to be accomplished.
As for the nature of the transmission, one can distinguish two groups of names. The first group consists of names recorded without any ethnic labels. Such names can be identified as Anatolian only by linguistic investigation, which necessarily reflects our defective contemporary knowledge. The second group consists of names recorded with ethnic labels. Although this seems to be the easier group, this is not necessarily the case. First, the Babylonian terminology slightly differs from ours. Although the terminology is straightforward, it is easy to miss Anatolian names if these differences are not taken into account. Specifically, the ethnonym ḫilikāya (Cilicians) refers to ‘Luwians’, both karšāya and bannēšāya refer to ‘Carians’ (the origin of the latter term is disputed), sapardāya (Sardeans) refers to ‘Lydians’, and tarmilāya refers to ‘Lycians’. Second, these labels do not necessarily refer only to these languages, for these regions were linguistically heterogenous. Hence, persons labelled ‘Lydian’, ‘Carian’, ‘Lycian’, and ‘Cilician’ may actually bear Greek names; some ‘Lydians’ and ‘Lycians’ may bear Carian names; ‘Carians’ may bear Egyptian, Akkadian, and Aramaic names; and it should cause no surprise that even Phrygian and Iranian names resort under these labels.Footnote 7 In other words, a linguistic investigation is inevitable in all of these cases.
One must also take language-specific problems into account, especially in the case of the languages in alphabetic transmission. First, some of these languages have phonemes without any equivalent in Babylonian. Second, there are some signs in the writing systems of these languages that are not fully deciphered. It is currently unclear if the relatively high number of names in Babylonian texts with or without the aforementioned ethnic labels that are still unidentified in the local language(s) is due to these problems.Footnote 8 A specific case is Carian, where Carian and foreign spellings grossly differ: while the names in non-Carian transmission are always fully vocalised (except, of course, in Egyptian hieroglyphs), the vowels are hardly ever noted in Carian transmission (of which the rules still elude us). This obviously poses a serious problem in identifying and analysing Carian names in Babylonian transmission.Footnote 9
Having said that, Anatolian names have a specific typology with name elements typical only for this region, both of which are conducive to their identification in the Babylonian material. The specific structure of Anatolian names will be elucidated later in the chapter.
Texts and Socio-Historical Contexts
Attempts at analysing the Anatolian onomastic material in Babylonian texts are valuable since the Babylonian transmission offers important insights into Anatolian languages, both linguistically and historically. In the linguistic sense, Babylonian spellings provide independent evidence for discussions of Anatolian onomastic materials preserved, for instance, in Neo-Assyrian or Egyptian transcriptions. From a historical point of view the Babylonian material contributes to a better understanding of Anatolian history as well as of the history of communities speaking (at least originally) Anatolian languages.
Unsurprisingly, Anatolian names appear in two types of Babylonian texts: historical and administrative. Historical texts deal with Anatolian events and, accordingly, their number is very low. A typical and instructive example is the aforementioned king of Pirindu, Appuwašu (Iap-pu-ú-a-šú), who is mentioned in a Babylonian chronicle (ABC 6:1). The chronicle dates from a period (mid-sixth century) when we do not (yet) have local, Anatolian historical sources. The fact that the ruler of a Neo-Hittite state still carries a Luwian name (cf. n. 4), demonstrated by the Babylonian transmission more than a century after the disappearance of Hieroglyphic Luwian texts, has important repercussions regarding the history and linguistic landscape of sixth century Anatolia.
The bulk of the attestations are provided by administrative texts. Anatolian names typically appear in Babylonian texts after the Persian conquest of Anatolia and Egypt, which led to the occasional relocation of individuals and communities speaking Anatolian languages. Nevertheless, due to the problems mentioned earlier, the informative value of these texts and the details of the historical processes they document are limited to specific cases. For instance, the linguistic identification of most of the ‘Lydians’ with bow-fiefs in Bīt-Tabalāyi in the region of Nippur, who appear in the archive of the agricultural firm of the Murašû family in the last quarter of the fifth century, is still problematic.Footnote 10 The names of most of the ‘Lycians’, protagonists of a receipt from the same archive, are equally unidentifiable.Footnote 11 Even less understood is the presence of Luwian speakers from Central Anatolia (‘Tabal’) implied by the aforementioned toponyms Bīt-Tabalāyi and Bīt-Kikê (Iki-ki-e), from the same region and period, which is based on a Luwian (Tabalite) personal name.Footnote 12 Currently, the only case where the linguistic identification is sufficiently advanced and the historical context instructive is that of the texts mentioning Carians.Footnote 13 These texts originate from Borsippa and most of them are receipts for provision of food rations to Carians stationed in Borsippa by local citizens in the reign of Cambyses and the early years of Darius I. These Carians arrived with their families from Egypt after its conquest by Cambyses, presumably as part of their military service or, alternatively, as prisoners of war. From an onomastic point of view, their Caro–Egyptian origin is evident as most of their names are either Carian or Egyptian in roughly equal proportion, although new (i.e., Babylonian and Aramaic) names are not unknown, if still very limited.Footnote 14
All in all, very few Anatolian names have been found in Babylonian texts until now, and they are mostly known from Borsippa and Nippur, while isolated examples appear all around Babylonia (e.g., Babylon, Ur, Uruk).
The Structure of the Anatolian Names: A Short Overview
Independently from the specific languages, Anatolia had its own, typically local naming practices, quite different from the other regions of the Ancient Near East and continuous through the millennia without notable changes. The latter feature is especially helpful in identifying Anatolian names since we can use the far-better-attested cuneiform and hieroglyphic material too. Noteworthy features specific to the Anatolian naming area include the complex system of the so-called ‘Lallnamen’ (‘elementary names’) and the compound names with some standard elements that are extremely widespread. In general, Anatolian names other than the ‘Lallnamen’ are transparent, meaningful names built on Anatolian material, which obviously makes their identification easier.
Anatolian names fall into two categories: ‘Lallnamen’ and non-elementary names. ‘Lallnamen’ are ‘elementary names’ since they are not built on meaningful words but on syllables of the simplest shapes.Footnote 15 These syllables are not completely freely chosen, as Table 13.1 illustrates.Footnote 16
Table 13.1 Anatolian Lallname types
| Structure | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | CV (monosyllables) | Tā, Pā, Tū |
| 2. | CVi-CVi (the reduplication of Type 1) | Lala, Nana, Kikki |
| 3. | aCa | Aba, Ada, Ana |
| 4. | aCiaCia(/i/u) (the reduplication of Type 3) | Ababa, Anana(/i/u) |
| 5. | [CVCV]i-[CVCV]i (full reduplication, also with syncope) | Waliwali, Murmura |
| 6. | [CV]i-[CV]iCV (disyllabic base with reduplicated first syllable) | Kukkunni, Pupuli |
| 7. | (C)V[CV]i-[CV]i (disyllabic base with reduplicated last syllable) | Mulili, Palulu |
| 8. | Ci/u+(glide)+a (monosyllabic base) | Niya, Puwa |
There are five types of non-elementary names: non-compound names (known in German as ‘einstämmige Vollnamen’), compound names (‘zweistämmige Vollnamen’), abbreviated names (‘Kurznamen’), sentence names (‘Satznamen’), and hypocoristic names (‘Kosenamen’).
Non-compound names are built on appellatives, toponyms, and divine names. In the case of the appellatives, stems and their derivatives are equally attested. Typical examples include Muwa ‘Might’ / Muwattalli ‘Mighty’, Piḫa ‘Splendour’ / Piḫammi ‘Resplendent’, Ḫantili ‘First’, *Imrassa/i-/(I)βrsi ‘(the one) Of the open country’. Names built on toponyms and ethnic names are derived by language-specific suffixes, for instance -ili- (e.g., Ḫattušili ‘(the one) Of (the city of) Ḫattuša’, Nerikkaili ‘(the one) Of (the city of) Nerik’), -uman- / -umna- (Ḫupišnuman ‘(the one) From (the city of) Ḫupišna’), and -wann(i)- (Urawanni ‘(the one) From (the city of) Ura’).Footnote 17 Names built on divine names can include a single divine name (e.g., Kuruntiya), a suffixed divine name, and even a double divine name (e.g., Arma-Tarḫunta). A specific group of divinities is especially popular in first-millennium names, including Arma, Iya, Runtiya, Šanda, and Tarḫunta (with regional phonological variants).Footnote 18
Compound names are created from nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. Recurring, typical elements include kinship terms and divine names. Several types of compound names exist, the two most important ones being determinative compounds and possessive compounds (also known as bahuvrihis). The relation between the composing elements, the first member (M1), and the second member (M2) – the meaning of a determinative compound – is varied. One possibility is ‘M2 is for M1’, as in the name Tarḫunta-warri ‘Help to Tarḫunta’ with the typical element warra/i- ‘help’. Another possibility is ‘M2 of/has the quality of M1’, as in the name Arma-nāni ‘Brother of (the moon god) Arma’. A typical element is zida/i- ‘man’, especially in combination with divine names and toponyms; for example, Arma-ziti ‘Man of (the moon god) Arma’ and Ḫalpa-ziti ‘Man of (the storm god of) Aleppo’.Footnote 19 The second member is frequently a divine name: for example, Ḫalpa-runtiya ‘(belonging to) Runtiya of Aleppo’. A typical adverb is šr ‘up, above’, as, for instance, in the name Šr-quq ‘Super-/Hyper-grandfather’. In a further typical construction M2 is a past participle; a frequent version is X-piyamma/i- ‘Given by X’.
The meaning of the possessive compounds is ‘Having the M2 of M1’ (thus the meaning is not ‘Having M1 and M2’). An extremely widespread type has muwa- as its second member, with the meaning ‘Having the might of M1’: the first member can be a divine name, toponym, appellative, adjective, or even an adverb. Some examples are Šauška-muwa ‘Having the might of Šauška’, Ḫalpa-muwa ‘Having the might of (the storm god of) Aleppo’, and Piḫa-muwa or Pariya-muwa ‘Having might beyond (surpassing might)’. Yet another widespread type has wasu- as its second member, with the meaning ‘Having the favour of M1’: for example, Ḫalpa-wasu ‘Having the favour of (the storm god of) Aleppo’.Footnote 20
Abbreviating names represents a widespread practice among the elder Indo-European languages. In fact, abbreviated names are a subtype of the compound names since they are created by the abbreviation of the second member of a compound name. The abbreviation is limited only by the constraint that the first consonant (group) must be preserved (see the well-known example Hera-kles vs. Patro-kl-os [abbreviated from Patro-kles]). This immediately shows that the abbreviation does not change the meaning of the name and does not turn it into a hypocoristic name. There are reasons to assume that the practice of abbreviation was known in Anatolia, too: names with the ‘shortening’ muwa- > mu- (e.g., Ḫalpa-mu) are well attested, although further investigation is needed as to whether they represent contracted forms (then with a long vowel, i.e., mū- [for a possible case in Babylonian transmission see n. 20]) or abbreviated names (then with a short vowel). The names with -piya- have a debated morphology, but as M2 from the participle piyamma/i- ‘given’ (e.g., Tarḫunta-piya ‘Given by Tarḫunta’), they might also belong here.
As for the sentence names, although their precise meaning and origin are quite debated (they are supposed to be created after Hurrian and/or Akkadian models), this does not influence their identification, as they are built from the usual elements as well as from verbs; thus, their Anatolian origin is easily recognisable. A typical example is Aza-tiwada ‘The sun god favours’ or ‘Favour (him), sun god!’.
Finally, the relatively rarely attested hypocoristic names require a language-specific diminutive suffix, such as Luwian -anna/i- (e.g., Zidanna/i ‘Little Man’, dU-ni /*Tarḫunni- ‘Little Storm-god’).
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