Editing Hittite language (section)

{{Short description|Extinct Bronze Age Indo-European language}}
{{redirect|Old Hittite|the Old Hittite Kingdom|Hittites#Old Kingdom}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Hittite
| altname          = Nesite
| nativename       = {{lang|hit|{{cuneiform|ana|𒌷𒉌𒅆𒇷}}}} {{Transliteration|hit|nešili}}
| region           = [[Anatolia]]
| era              = attested 17th to 12th centuries BC
| script           = [[Hittite cuneiform]]
| familycolor      = Indo-European
| fam2             = [[Anatolian languages|Anatolian]]
| iso2             = hit
| lc1              = hit
| ld1              = Hittite
| lc2              = oht
| ld2              = Old Hittite
| lc3              = htx
| ld3              = Middle Hittite
| lc4              = nei
| ld4              = New Hittite
| linglist         = hit
| lingname         = Hittite
| linglist2        = oht
| lingname2        = Old Hittite
| linglist3        = htx
| lingname3        = Middle Hittite
| linglist4        = nei
| lingname4        = New Hittite
| glotto           = hitt1242
| glottorefname    = Hittite
| image            = Hittite Cuneiform Tablet- Legal Deposition(?).jpg
}}
{{Contains special characters|cuneiform}}

'''Hittite''' ({{langx|hit|{{cuneiform|ana|𒌷𒉌𒅆𒇷}}|translit=nešili|label=[[Hittite cuneiform]]|lit=the language of [[Kültepe|Neša]]}},<ref>Hoffner & Melchert (2008), p. 2</ref> or {{Transliteration|hit|nešumnili}} {{lit|the language of the people of Neša}}), also known as '''Nesite''' (Nešite/Neshite, Nessite), is an extinct [[Indo-European language]] that was spoken by the [[Hittites]], a people of [[Bronze Age Anatolia]] who created an empire centred on [[Hattusa]], as well as parts of the northern [[Levant]] and [[Upper Mesopotamia]].{{sfn|Yakubovich|2020|pp=221–237}} The language, now long extinct, is attested in [[Hittite cuneiform|cuneiform]], in records dating from the 17th<ref>van den Hout, Theo, (2020).  A History of Hittite Literacy: Writing and Reading in Late Bronze-Age Anatolia (1650–1200&nbsp;BC), Published online: 18 December 2020, Print publication: 07 January 2021, [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-hittite-literacy/introduction/2665C532BD423C96A11075D908A9EF09 "Introduction"]: "...The hero of this book is literacy, writing and reading, in the Hittite kingdom in ancient Anatolia, or modern-day Turkey, from roughly 1650 to 1200&nbsp;BC, give or take several years or perhaps even a decade or two..."</ref> ([[Anitta text]]) to the 13th centuries&nbsp;BC, with isolated Hittite loanwords and numerous personal names appearing in an [[Akkadian language|Old Assyrian]] context from as early as the 20th century&nbsp;BC, making it the earliest attested use of the Indo-European languages.

By the [[Late Bronze Age]], Hittite had started losing ground to its close relative [[Luwian language|Luwian]]. It appears that Luwian was the most widely spoken language in the Hittite capital of Hattusa during the 13th century&nbsp;BC.<ref>Yakubovich 2010, p. 307</ref> After the collapse of the [[Hittite New Kingdom]] during the more general [[Late Bronze Age collapse]], Luwian emerged in the early [[Iron Age]] as the main language of the so-called [[Syro-Hittite states]], in southwestern [[Anatolia]] and northern [[Syria]].