Re: OT: What language is "Hattusas"?

From:    Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
> The question came up on a gaming forum, and I thought someone here'd know; from
> which language is the name of the Hettite capital, Hattusas?
I can confirm that Hattusas was originally a Hattic settlement.
The Hattites also founded Nesha and Purushanda.

Paul Bennett wrote:
> The information I have states that it's an isolate, and existed prior to
> the Hittites and other Indo-European people arriving in Anatolia. Well, I
> think it says slightly more than that, but my German is too rusty to fully
> decipher it:
It is indeed an isolate, although a good friend of mine who is a
Hittitologist told me that some speculate that the language is most
closely related to the Northwest Caucasian languages.  I know of
no works that attempt to substantiate this claim.

> Wir beschließen die Beiträge über die "Altkleinasiatischen Sprachen" mit
> einem Bericht über die älteste durch Texte bezeugte anatolische Sprache,
> das Hattische (Chattishe, Protohattische, heth. |ḫattili|). Die teilwiese
> Bewahrung dieser isolierten Sprache verdanken wir den Hathitern, die
> kulturell und sprachlich stark von der kulturell überlegenen
> Vorbevölkerung beeinflußt worden sind. Der etwas anachronische Aufbau
> dieses Bandes -- in Beitrag 3.5 wurden zunächst die (etwas jüngeren)
> indogermanischen Sprachen der hethitisch-luwischen Sprachgruppe und das
> vielleicht dazu gehörige Lydische behandelt -- beruht darauf, daß das
> Hattische noch immer mangelhaft erforscht ist und die Erforschung und
> Darstellung des Hattischen eine intime Kenntnis des Hethitischen
> voraussetzt (vgl. Beitrag 3 §§ 16-27).
"We conclude the article on the old languages of Asia Minor
with a report on the oldest attested Anatolian language, Hattic (Khattic,
Protohattic, Hitt. _hattili_).  For the partial preservation of of this
isolate language we have the Hittites to thank, who culturally and
linguistically  were strongly influenced by the culturally superior
ur-population. The somewhat anachronistic construction of this link --
in section 3.5 were first discussed the (somewhat younger) Indo-European
languages of the Hittite-Luwian language family and the perhaps related
Lydian -- depends on the fact that Hattic is still imperfectly investigated,
and the investigation and description of Hattic implies an intimate
knowledge of Hittite."

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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