Editing Hittite language (section)

==Decipherment==
[[File:Traité entre Tudhaliya IV du Hatti et Kurunta de Tarhuntassa.jpg|thumb|''Treaty between Tudhaliya IV of Hatti and Kurunta of Tarhuntassa'' (Bo 86/299), the only known bronze Hittite tablet, discovered in Hattusa, 1986. Museum of Anatolian Civilisation in Ankara]]
The first substantive claim as to the affiliation of Hittite was made by [[Jørgen Alexander Knudtzon]]<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20190801114400mp_/https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Hawkins.pdf|author=J. D. Hawkins|title=The Arzawa Letters in Recent Perspective|journal=British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan|volume=14|date=2009|pages=73–83}}</ref> in 1902, in a book devoted to two letters between the king of Egypt and a Hittite ruler, found at [[El-Amarna]], [[Egypt]]. Knudtzon argued that Hittite was Indo-European, largely because of its [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]]. Although he had no bilingual texts, he was able to provide a partial interpretation of the two letters because of the formulaic nature of the diplomatic correspondence of the period.<ref name="Beckman">{{cite journal|author=Beckman, Gary|title=The Hittite Language: Recovery and Grammatical Sketch|date=2011|journal=The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia 10,000-323 B.C.E.|editor1=S.R. Steadman|editor2=G. McMahon|pages=518–519|hdl=2027.42/86652}}</ref>

Knudtzon was definitively shown to have been correct when many tablets written in the familiar [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] [[cuneiform script]] but in an unknown language were discovered by [[Hugo Winckler]] in what is now the village of [[Boğazkale|Boğazköy]], Turkey, which was the former site of [[Hattusa]], the capital of the Hittite state.<ref>Silvia Alaura: "Nach Boghasköi!" Zur Vorgeschichte der Ausgrabungen in Boğazköy-Ḫattuša und zu den archäologischen Forschungen bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, Benedict Press 2006. {{ISBN|3-00-019295-6}}</ref> Based on a study of this extensive [[Bedřich Hrozný#Deciphering of the Hittite language|material]], [[Bedřich Hrozný]] succeeded in analyzing the language. He presented his argument that the language is Indo-European in a paper published in 1915 (Hrozný 1915), which was followed by a grammar of the language (Hrozný 1917).<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Fortson|2004|p=154}}</ref>

Hrozný's argument for the Indo-European affiliation of Hittite was thoroughly modern although poorly substantiated. He focused on the striking similarities in idiosyncratic aspects of the morphology that are unlikely to occur independently by chance or to be borrowed.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Fortson|2004|p=154}}</ref> They included the ''r''/''n'' [[alternation (linguistics)|alternation]] in some noun stems (the [[heteroclitic stem|heteroclitics]]) and vocalic [[ablaut]], which are both seen in the alternation in the word for ''water'' between the nominative singular, ''wadar'', and the genitive singular, ''wedenas''. He also presented a set of regular sound correspondences.

After a brief initial delay because of disruption during the [[First World War]], Hrozný's decipherment, tentative grammatical analysis and demonstration of the Indo-European affiliation of Hittite were rapidly accepted and more broadly substantiated by contemporary scholars such as [[Edgar H. Sturtevant]], who authored the first scientifically acceptable Hittite grammar with a [[chrestomathy]] and a glossary. The most up-to-date grammar of the Hittite language is currently Hoffner and Melchert (2008).