Hittite Language

Hittite, also known as Nesite, is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken in Anatolia during the Bronze Age. It is attested in cuneiform texts, primarily from the archives of the city of Hattusa, between the seventeenth and thirteenth centuries BC, and isolated Hittite words and personal names in Old Assyrian documents from Kanesh, as early as the twentieth century BC, make it the earliest attested use of any Indo-European language. By the Late Bronze Age Hittite was losing ground to its close relative Luwian, which after the collapse of the Hittite New Kingdom became the main language of the Syro-Hittite states in southwestern Anatolia and northern Syria. In this atlas the entry is used for prayers and other texts recorded in Hittite cuneiform.