Palaic language

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Palaic is an extinct Indo-European language, attested in cuneiform tablets in Bronze Age Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites. Palaic, which was apparently spoken mainly in northern Anatolia, is generally considered to be one of four primary sub-divisions of the Anatolian languages, alongside Hittite (central Anatolia), Luwic (southern Anatolia) and Lydian (western Anatolia).

Its name in Hittite is palaumnili, or "of the people of Pala"; Pala was probably to the northwest of the Hittite core area, so in the northwest of present mainland Turkey. The region was overrun by the Kaskians in the 15th century BC, and the language likely went out of daily use at that time.

Sources

The entire corpus of Palaic spans only CTH 751-754 in Emmanuel Laroche's catalog of Hittite texts; in addition Hittite texts elsewhere cite passages in Palaic in reference to the weather god Zaparwa (Hittite Ziparwa), the leading god of the land of Pala.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In particular, CTH 750, a festival in Hittite for Ziparwa and associated deities, includes passages stating, "The Old Woman speaks the words of the bread in Palaic," or alternately "the words of the meal," though no Palaic passages are quoted. The Palaic-language texts are all from a religious context, with ritual and mythological content.<ref>Carruba, O. Das Palaische. Texte, Grammatik, Lexikon. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1970. StBoT 10.</ref> In addition to Zaparwa, the Palaumnili-speakers worshipped a sun deity Tiyaz (Luwian Tiwaz), the Hattian goddess Kataḫzip/wuri, and several others.

Phonology

Melchert reconstructs the following phonemic inventory for Palaic:<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, Melchert claims that, instead of pharyngeals, "a pair of velar fricatives is equally possible".

Consonants

	Labial	Labiodental	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Pharyngeal
Plosive	Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Affricate			Template:IPAlink
Fricative		Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Nasal	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Liquid			Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Glide	Template:IPAlink			Template:IPAlink

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Mid
Open		Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink

The phonemic status of /e/ and /eː/ is uncertain.

Morphology

In terms of its morphology, Palaic is a fairly typical specimen of Indo-European. Palaic shared common innovations with Luwian not present in Old Hittite, suggesting a prior Luwian-Palaic linguistic complex.<ref>The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective, p. 7. N.p., Cambridge University Press, 2022.</ref> It has been characterized as "more conservative than Hittite" and heavily influenced by the Hattic language, though caution is prescribed for the latter assertion given the paucity of available materials.<ref>Melchert, Harold Craig. Anatolian historical phonology, p.10. Netherlands, Rodopi, 1994.</ref>

Noun

Palaic shows the same gender distinction as seen in Hittite, i.e. animate vs. inanimate. It distinguishes two numbers, singular and plural, and at least six cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, and locative.<ref name=":0"/>

Old Hittite has the genitive singular suffix -aš circa 1600 BC (compare Proto-Indo-European *-os); where Cuneiform Luwian instead uses the -ašša/i- adjectival suffix. Palaic, on the northern border of both, like later Hieroglyphic Luwian has both an -aš genitive and an -aša- adjectival suffix.

Palaic also has similar pronoun forms to Old Hittite.Template:Citation needed

Verb

The verb in Palaic is inflected for number (singular and plural), person, tense (present and preterite), and mood (indicative and imperative). It also has two voices, active and medio-passive.<ref name=":0"/>

Palaic is considered to have had a "high number of attestations of the suffix -ina," all of which were transitive.<ref>Sasseville, David. Anatolian Verbal Stem Formation: Luwian, Lycian and Lydian. Netherlands, Brill, 2020, p. 528.</ref>

Further reading

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External links

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• Catalog of Hittite Texts
• Genitive Case and Possessive Adjective in Anatolian by Craig Melchert