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128-399: The mound ( Turkish höyük ) measures 310 meters by 275 meters with a height of about 14 meters. The mound features cone like rises at the south and northeast ends. It has 14 occupational layers with 9-14 being Chalcolithic, 5-8 being Early Bronze Age (royal tombs), and 2-4 being Hittite. The uppermost layer shows elements of Phrygian, Roman, and Ottoman times. Layers 14-9 : Alacahöyük was

256-570: A certain "land of Hatti ". Some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European . The script on a monument at Boğazkale by a "People of Hattusas" discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo and Hama in Northern Syria . In 1887, excavations at Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son, Akhenaten . Two of

384-652: A clay sealing, two vessels with seal impressions, and a stele fragment. Turkish language Turkish ( Türkçe [ˈtyɾctʃe] , Türk dili ; also known as Türkiye Türkçesi 'Turkish of Turkey' ) is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages , with around 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and one of two official languages of Cyprus . Significant smaller groups of Turkish speakers also exist in Germany , Austria , Bulgaria , North Macedonia , Greece , other parts of Europe ,

512-466: A country, and in his hand the great cities prospered. But, when later the princes' servants became corrupt, they began to devour the properties, conspired constantly against their masters, and began to shed their blood." This excerpt from The Edict of Telepinu , dating to the 16th century BC, is supposed to illustrate the unification, growth, and prosperity of the Hittites under his rule. It also illustrates

640-475: A form of consonant mutation whereby a voiced obstruent, such as /b d dʒ ɡ/ , is devoiced to [p t tʃ k] at the end of a word or before a consonant, but retains its voicing before a vowel. In loan words, the voiced equivalent of /k/ is /g/; in native words, it is /ğ/. This is analogous to languages such as German and Russian , but in the case of Turkish it only applies, as the above examples demonstrate, to stops and affricates, not to fricatives. The spelling

768-567: A large collection of loanwords from Arabic and Persian . Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry , was heavily influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters and a great quantity of imported words. The literary and official language during the Ottoman Empire period ( c.  1299 –1922) is termed Ottoman Turkish , which was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that differed considerably and

896-469: A leading intellectual, voicing his concern that Turkish language has "already started to take over the national and natural dialects of Azerbaijan". However, the presence of Turkish as foreign language is not as high as Russian. In Uzbekistan, the second most populated Turkic country, a new TV channel Foreign Languages TV was established in 2022. This channel has been broadcasting Turkish lessons along with English, French, German and Russian lessons. Turkish

1024-573: A multitude of Turkish companies and authorities investing there, while the influence of Turkey in the country is very high. The rising presence of this very similar language in Azerbaijan and the fact that many children use Turkish words instead of Azerbaijani words due to satellite TV has caused concern that the distinctive features of the language will be eroded. Many bookstores sell books in Turkish language along Azerbaijani language ones, with Agalar Mahmadov,

1152-415: A negative suffix -me to the verb (the suffix comes after the stem but before the tense): Necla okula gitmedi ('Necla did not go to school'). In the case of a verbal sentence, an interrogative clitic mi is added after the verb and stands alone, for example Necla okula gitti mi? ('Did Necla go to school?'). In the case of a nominal sentence, then mi comes after the predicate but before

1280-536: A non- Indo-European people settled along the shores of the Black Sea . The capital once again went on the move, first to Sapinuwa and then to Samuha . There is an archive in Sapinuwa, but it has not been adequately translated to date. It segues into the "Hittite Empire period" proper, which dates from the reign of Tudhaliya I from c.  1430 BC . One innovation that can be credited to these early Hittite rulers

1408-505: A part of it. Hittite prosperity was mostly dependent on control of the trade routes and metal sources. Because of the importance of Northern Syria to the vital routes linking the Cilician gates with Mesopotamia, defense of this area was crucial, and was soon put to the test by Egyptian expansion under Pharaoh Ramesses II . The outcome of the Battle of Kadesh is uncertain, though it seems that

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1536-653: A scene of settlement in a continuous sequence of development from the Chalcolithic Age, when earliest copper tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools. Layers 8-5 : During the Early Bronze Age , the mound was the center of a flourishing culture connected to the Anatolian Trade Network. It has been continuously occupied ever since, until today's modern settlement in the form of a small village. Fourteen shaft-grave "Royal Tombs" (2850–2450 BC) date to

1664-551: A strong T–V distinction which distinguishes varying levels of politeness, social distance , age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a single person out of respect. Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of the Turkic family. Other members include Azerbaijani , spoken in Azerbaijan and north-west Iran , Gagauz of Gagauzia , Qashqai of south Iran and

1792-628: A vast geographical region stretching from Siberia all the way to Europe and the Mediterranean . The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks , in particular, brought their language, Oghuz —the direct ancestor of today's Turkish language—into Anatolia during the 11th century. Also during the 11th century, an early linguist of the Turkic languages, Mahmud al-Kashgari from the Kara-Khanid Khanate , published

1920-407: A verb in the form of the copula ol or y (variants of "be"). Examples of both are given below: The two groups of sentences have different ways of forming negation. A nominal sentence can be negated with the addition of the word değil . For example, the sentence above would become Necla öğretmen değil ('Necla is not a teacher'). However, the verbal sentence requires the addition of

2048-526: Is based on the dialect of Istanbul . This Istanbul Turkish ( İstanbul Türkçesi ) constitutes the model of written and spoken Turkish, as recommended by Ziya Gökalp , Ömer Seyfettin and others. Dialectal variation persists, in spite of the levelling influence of the standard used in mass media and in the Turkish education system since the 1930s. Academic researchers from Turkey often refer to Turkish dialects as ağız or şive , leading to an ambiguity with

2176-581: Is clear from some of the texts included here. For several centuries there were separate Hittite groups, usually centered on various cities. But then strong rulers with their center in Hattusa (modern Boğazkale) succeeded in bringing these together and conquering large parts of central Anatolia to establish the Hittite kingdom. The Hittite state was formed from many small polities in North-Central Anatolia, at

2304-506: Is due to the initial identification of the people of Hattusa with the Biblical Hittites by 19th-century archaeologists . The Hittites would have called themselves something closer to "Neshites" or "Neshians" after the city of Nesha, which flourished for some two hundred years until a king named Labarna renamed himself Hattusili I (meaning "the man of Hattusa") sometime around 1650 BC and established his capital city at Hattusa. Before

2432-547: Is evidence of having taken a route across the Caucasus. David Reich, Iosif Lazaridis, Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg et al. have demonstrated that the Hittite route must have been via the Caucasus and not the Balkans, since Yamnaya expansion into the Balkans carried a component of Eastern Hunter Gatherer ancestry that does not exist in any ancient Anatolian DNA samples, which indicates also that Hittites and their cousin groups split off from

2560-464: Is now used to mean " script " in computer science . Some examples of modern Turkish words and the old loanwords are: Turkish is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey and by the Turkish diaspora in some 30 other countries. The Turkish language is mutually intelligible with Azerbaijani . In particular, Turkish-speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to

2688-668: Is the official language of Turkey and is one of the official languages of Cyprus . Turkish has official status in 38 municipalities in Kosovo , including Mamusha, , two in the Republic of North Macedonia and in Kirkuk Governorate in Iraq. Cyprus has requested the European Union to add Turkish as an official language, as it is one of the two official languages of the country. In Turkey,

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2816-510: Is the oldest historically attested Indo-European language. The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in their former territories, and from diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in the various archives of Assyria , Babylonia , Egypt and the broader Middle East ; the decipherment of these texts was a key event in the history of Indo-European studies . Cultural links to prehistoric Scandinavia have also been suggested. Scholars once attributed

2944-533: Is the practice of conducting treaties and alliances with neighboring states; the Hittites were thus among the earliest known pioneers in the art of international politics and diplomacy. This is also when the Hittite religion adopted several gods and rituals from the Hurrians. With the reign of Tudhaliya I (who may actually not have been the first of that name; see also Tudhaliya ), the Hittite Kingdom re-emerged from

3072-642: Is usually made to match the sound. However, in a few cases, such as ad 'name' (dative ada ), the underlying form is retained in the spelling (cf. at 'horse', dative ata ). Other exceptions are od 'fire' vs. ot 'herb', sac 'sheet metal', saç 'hair'. Most loanwords, such as kitap above, are spelled as pronounced, but a few such as hac 'hajj', şad 'happy', and yad 'strange' or 'stranger' also show their underlying forms. Native nouns of two or more syllables that end in /k/ in dictionary form are nearly all /ğ/ in underlying form. However, most verbs and monosyllabic nouns are underlyingly /k/. The vowels of

3200-431: Is usually referred to as yumuşak g ("soft g"), written ⟨ğ⟩ in Turkish orthography , represents a vowel sequence or a rather weak bilabial approximant between rounded vowels, a weak palatal approximant between unrounded front vowels, and a vowel sequence elsewhere. It never occurs at the beginning of a word or a syllable, but always follows a vowel. When word-final or preceding another consonant, it lengthens

3328-690: The Aegean region, with its usage extending to Antalya . The nomadic Yörüks of the Mediterranean Region of Turkey also have their own dialect of Turkish. This group is not to be confused with the Yuruk nomads of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey, who speak Balkan Gagauz Turkish . The Meskhetian Turks who live in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia as well as in several Central Asian countries, also speak an Eastern Anatolian dialect of Turkish, originating in

3456-561: The Amorite rulers of the Old Babylonian Empire in the process. Rather than incorporate Babylonia into Hittite domains, Mursili seems to have instead turned control of Babylonia over to his Kassite allies, who were to rule it for the next four centuries. Due to fear of revolts at home, he did not remain in Babylon for long. This lengthy campaign strained the resources of Hatti, and left

3584-467: The Anitta text, begin by telling how Pithana the king of Kussara conquered neighbouring Neša ( Kanesh ), this conquest took place around 1750 BC. However, the real subject of these tablets is Pithana 's son Anitta ( r.  1745–1720 BC), who continued where his father left off and conquered several northern cities: including Hattusa, which he cursed, and also Zalpuwa. This was likely propaganda for

3712-634: The Hittite Empire , it reached its peak during the mid-14th century BC under Šuppiluliuma I , when it encompassed most of Anatolia and parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia , bordering the rival empires of the Hurri-Mitanni and Assyrians. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC, the Hittites were one of the dominant powers of the Near East , coming into conflict with the New Kingdom of Egypt ,

3840-605: The Laz language ). Kastamonu is spoken in Kastamonu and its surrounding areas. Karamanli Turkish is spoken in Greece, where it is called Kαραμανλήδικα . It is the literary standard for the Karamanlides . At least one source claims Turkish consonants are laryngeally-specified three-way fortis-lenis (aspirated/neutral/voiced) like Armenian, although only syllable-finally. The phoneme that

3968-444: The Mediterranean coastline, starting from the Aegean , and continuing all the way to Canaan, founding the state of Philistia  – taking Cilicia and Cyprus away from the Hittites en route and cutting off their coveted trade routes. This left the Hittite homelands vulnerable to attack from all directions, and Hattusa was burnt to the ground sometime around 1180 BC following a combined onslaught from new waves of invaders:

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4096-603: The Middle Assyrian Empire and the empire of Mitanni . By the 12th century BC, much of the Hittite Empire was annexed by the Middle Assyrian Empire , with the remainder sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. From the late 12th century BC, during the Late Bronze Age collapse , the Hittites splintered into several small independent states , some of which survived until the eighth century BC before succumbing to

4224-624: The Neo-Assyrian Empire ; lacking a unifying continuity , their descendants scattered and ultimately merged into the modern populations of the Levant and Mesopotamia . The Hittite language —referred to by its speakers as nešili , "the language of Nesa "—was a distinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family ; along with the closely related Luwian language , it

4352-741: The Ottoman Empire , such as Iraq, Bulgaria, Cyprus , Greece (primarily in Western Thrace ), the Republic of North Macedonia , Romania, and Serbia. More than two million Turkish speakers live in Germany; and there are significant Turkish-speaking communities in the United States, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Due to the cultural assimilation of Turkish immigrants in host countries, not all ethnic members of

4480-514: The South Caucasus , and some parts of Central Asia , Iraq , and Syria . Turkish is the 18th most spoken language in the world. To the west, the influence of Ottoman Turkish —the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire —spread as the Ottoman Empire expanded. In 1928, as one of Atatürk's reforms in the early years of

4608-527: The Trabzon region of northeastern Turkey follows the reduced vowel harmony of Old Anatolian Turkish , with the additional complication of two missing vowels (ü and ı), thus there is no palatal harmony . It is likely that elün meant "your hand" in Old Anatolian. While the 2nd person singular possessive would vary between back and front vowel, -ün or -un, as in elün for "your hand" and kitabun for "your book",

4736-473: The Turkmen of Turkmenistan . Historically the Turkic family was seen as a branch of the larger Altaic family, including Japanese , Korean , Mongolian and Tungusic , with various other language families proposed for inclusion by linguists. Altaic theory has fallen out of favour since the 1960s, and a majority of linguists now consider Turkic languages to be unrelated to any other language family, though

4864-553: The "Sphinx Gate", date from the Hittite period that followed the Hatti, from the fourteenth century BC. Two Hittite cuneform texts (A1.d164) mentions the city Arinna and the sun-goddess. One letter states: "Zuwa says: Arinna which was inherited by us from our grandfathers has a golden sun disk which represents the Sun Goddess". The letter may have been sent from or to this site, indicating that

4992-551: The 13th century BC into the 12th century BC with drought for three consecutive years in 1198, 1197 and 1196 BC. By 1160 BC, the political situation in Asia Minor looked vastly different from that of only 25 years earlier. In that year, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I was defeating the Mushki (Phrygians) who had been attempting to press into Assyrian colonies in southern Anatolia from

5120-515: The Altaic hypothesis still has a small degree of support from individual linguists. The nineteenth-century Ural-Altaic theory, which grouped Turkish with Finnish , Hungarian and Altaic languages, is considered even less plausible in light of Altaic's rejection. The theory was based mostly on the fact these languages share three features: agglutination , vowel harmony and lack of grammatical gender. The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are

5248-609: The Anatolian civilization "[was] worthy of comparison to the divided Kingdom of Egypt", and was "infinitely more powerful than that of Judah". Sayce and other scholars also noted that Judah and the Hittites were never enemies in the Hebrew texts; in the Book of Kings , they supplied the Israelites with cedar, chariots, and horses, and in the Book of Genesis were friends and allies to Abraham . Uriah

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5376-483: The Arzawans. This was the first recorded use of biological warfare . Mursili also attacked a city known as Millawanda ( Miletus ), which was under the control of Ahhiyawa . More recent research based on new readings and interpretations of the Hittite texts, as well as of the material evidence for Mycenaean contacts with the Anatolian mainland, came to the conclusion that Ahhiyawa referred to Mycenaean Greece , or at least to

5504-457: The Assyrians under his son-in-law, and he defeated Carchemish , another Amorite city-state. With his own sons placed over all of these new conquests and Babylonia still in the hands of the allied Kassites , this left Šuppiluliuma the supreme power broker in the known world, alongside Assyria and Egypt, and it was not long before Egypt was seeking an alliance by marriage of another of his sons with

5632-461: The Hittite was a captain in King David 's army and counted as one of his "mighty men" in 1 Chronicles 11. French scholar Charles Texier found the first Hittite ruins in 1834 but did not identify them as such. The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the karum of Kanesh (now called Kültepe ), containing records of trade between Assyrian merchants and

5760-539: The Hittite Empire period the kingship became hereditary and the king took on a "superhuman aura" and began to be referred to by the Hittite citizens as "My Sun". The kings of the Empire period began acting as a high priest for the whole kingdom – making an annual tour of the Hittite holy cities, conducting festivals and supervising the upkeep of the sanctuaries. During his reign ( c.  1400 BC ), King Tudhaliya I, again allied with Kizzuwatna, then vanquished

5888-545: The Hittite capital of Hattusa, which houses the world's most comprehensive exhibition of Hittite art and artifacts. The Hittites called their kingdom Hattusa ( Hatti in Akkadian), a name received from the Hattians , an earlier people who had inhabited and ruled the central Anatolian region until the beginning of the second millennium BC, and who spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic . The modern conventional name "Hittites"

6016-566: The Hittite language itself is believed to have been in use in Central Anatolia between the 20th and 12th centuries BC. The Hittites are first associated with the kingdom of Kussara sometime prior to 1750 BC. Hittites in Anatolia during the Bronze Age coexisted with Hattians and Hurrians , either by means of conquest or by gradual assimilation. In archaeological terms, relationships of

6144-468: The Hittite script is quite different from that of the preceding Assyrian colonial period. The Hittites entered a weak phase of obscure records, insignificant rulers, and reduced domains. This pattern of expansion under strong kings followed by contraction under weaker ones, was to be repeated over and over through the Hittite Kingdom's 500-year history, making events during the waning periods difficult to reconstruct. The political instability of these years of

6272-572: The Hittites to the Ezero culture of the Balkans and Maykop culture of the Caucasus had previously been considered within the migration framework. Analyses by David W. Anthony in 2007 concluded that steppe herders who were archaic Indo-European speakers spread into the lower Danube valley about 4200–4000 BC, either causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe . He thought their languages "probably included archaic Proto-Indo-European dialects of

6400-463: The Hurrian states of Aleppo and Mitanni, and expanded to the west at the expense of Arzawa (a Luwian state). Another weak phase followed Tudhaliya I, and the Hittites' enemies from all directions were able to advance even to Hattusa and raze it. However, the kingdom recovered its former glory under Šuppiluliuma I ( c.  1350 BC ), who again conquered Aleppo. Mitanni was reduced to vassalage by

6528-551: The Kaskian territories north as far as Hayasa-Azzi in the far north-east, as well as south into Canaan near the southern border of Lebanon . The ancestors of the Hittites came into Anatolia between 4400 and 4100 BC, when the Anatolian language family split from (Proto)-Indo-European. Recent genetic and archaeological research has indicated that Proto-Anatolian speakers arrived in this region sometime between 5000 and 3000 BC. The Proto-Hittite language developed around 2100 BC, and

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6656-464: The Kaskians, Phrygians and Bryges . The Hittite Kingdom thus vanished from historical records, much of the territory being seized by Assyria. Alongside with these attacks, many internal issues also led to the end of the Hittite Kingdom. The end of the kingdom was part of the larger Bronze Age Collapse . A study of tree rings of juniper trees growing in the region showed a change to drier conditions from

6784-515: The Latin alphabet for speakers of eastern dialects. Some immigrants to Turkey from Rumelia speak Rumelian Turkish , which includes the distinct dialects of Ludogorie , Dinler, and Adakale, which show the influence of the theorized Balkan sprachbund . Kıbrıs Türkçesi is the name for Cypriot Turkish and is spoken by the Turkish Cypriots . Edirne is the dialect of Edirne . Ege is spoken in

6912-567: The Latin script, encoded for many of the dialectal variations between Turkish dialects, the modern Latin script fails to do this. Examples of this are the presence of the nasal velar sound [ŋ] in certain eastern dialects of Turkish which was represented by the Ottoman letter /ڭ/ but that was merged into /n/ in the Latin script. Additionally are letters such as /خ/, /ق/, /غ/ which make the sounds [ɣ], [q], and [x], respectively in certain eastern dialects but that are merged into [g], [k], and [h] in western dialects and are therefore defectively represented in

7040-525: The Mitanni and Hurrians were duly appropriated by Assyria, enabling it to encroach on Hittite territory in eastern Asia Minor , and Adad-nirari I annexed Carchemish and northeast Syria from the control of the Hittites. While Šuppiluliuma I reigned, the Hittite Empire was devastated by an epidemic of tularemia . The epidemic afflicted the Hittites for decades and tularemia killed Šuppiluliuma I and his successor, Arnuwanda II . After Šuppiluliuma I's rule, and

7168-539: The Old Hittite Kingdom can be explained in part by the nature of the Hittite kingship at that time. During the Old Hittite Kingdom prior to 1400 BC, the king of the Hittites was not viewed by his subjects as a "living god" like the Pharaohs of Egypt, but rather as a first among equals. Only in the later period from 1400 BC until 1200 BC did the Hittite kingship become more centralized and powerful. Also in earlier years

7296-400: The Old Kingdom, Telepinu, reigned until about 1500 BC. Telepinu's reign marked the end of the "Old Kingdom" and the beginning of the lengthy weak phase known as the "Middle Kingdom". The period of the 15th century BC is largely unknown with few surviving records. Part of the reason for both the weakness and the obscurity is that the Hittites were under constant attack, mainly from the Kaskians,

7424-400: The Proto Indo Europeans before the formation of the Yamnaya which did admix with Eastern Hunter Gatherers. The dominant indigenous inhabitants in central Anatolia were Hurrians and Hattians who spoke non- Indo-European languages . Some have argued that Hattic was a Northwest Caucasian language , but its affiliation remains uncertain, whilst the Hurrian language was a near- isolate (i.e. it

7552-417: The Republic of Turkey, the Perso-Arabic script -based Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with the Latin script -based Turkish alphabet . Some distinctive characteristics of the Turkish language are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination . The basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb . Turkish has no noun classes or grammatical gender . The language makes usage of honorifics and has

7680-504: The SOV structure has diminished relevance and may vary. The SOV structure may thus be considered a "pragmatic word order" of language, one that does not rely on word order for grammatical purposes. Consider the following simple sentence which demonstrates that the focus in Turkish is on the element that immediately precedes the verb: Ahmet Ahmet yumurta-yı Hittites The Hittites ( / ˈ h ɪ t aɪ t s / ) were an Anatolian Indo-European people who formed one of

7808-412: The TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka , "political party"—also failed to meet with popular approval ( fırka has been replaced by the French loanword parti ). Some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings; for example betik (originally meaning "book")

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7936-539: The Turkish language are, in their alphabetical order, ⟨a⟩ , ⟨e⟩ , ⟨ı⟩ , ⟨i⟩ , ⟨o⟩ , ⟨ö⟩ , ⟨u⟩ , ⟨ü⟩ . The Turkish vowel system can be considered as being three-dimensional, where vowels are characterised by how and where they are articulated focusing on three key features: front and back , rounded and unrounded and vowel height . Vowels are classified [±back], [±round] and [±high]. The only diphthongs in

8064-408: The Zalpuwan/Hattusan family, though whether these were of the direct line of Anitta is uncertain. Meanwhile, the lords of Zalpa lived on. Huzziya I , descendant of a Huzziya of Zalpa, took over Hatti. His son-in-law Labarna I , a southerner from Hurma usurped the throne but made sure to adopt Huzziya's grandson Ḫattušili as his own son and heir. The location of the land of Hurma is believed to be in

8192-437: The adoption of the new Turkish alphabet in 1928, shaped the modern Turkish language spoken today. The TDK became an independent body in 1951, with the lifting of the requirement that it should be presided over by the Minister of Education. This status continued until August 1983, when it was again made into a governmental body in the constitution of 1982 , following the military coup d'état of 1980 . Modern standard Turkish

8320-473: The appearance of Hittite, was related to later migrations of Proto-Indo-European speakers from the Yamnaya culture into the Danube Valley at c. 2800 BC, which was in line with the "customary" assumption that the Anatolian Indo-European language was introduced into Anatolia sometime in the third millennium BC. However, Petra Goedegebuure has shown that the Hittite language has borrowed many words related to agriculture from cultures on their eastern borders, which

8448-502: The archaeologist Hugo Winckler found a royal archive with 10,000 tablets, inscribed in cuneiform Akkadian and the same unknown language as the Egyptian letters from Kheta —thus confirming the identity of the two names. He also proved that the ruins at Boğazköy were the remains of the capital of an empire that, at one point, controlled northern Syria. Under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute , excavations at Hattusa have been under way since 1907, with interruptions during

8576-488: The archeological discoveries that revealed the Hittite civilization, the only source of information about the Hittites had been the Hebrew Bible. Francis William Newman expressed the critical view, common in the early 19th century, that, "no Hittite king could have compared in power to the King of Judah ...". As the discoveries in the second half of the 19th century revealed the scale of the Hittite kingdom, Archibald Sayce asserted that, rather than being compared to Judah,

8704-407: The areas of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin and sharing similarities with Azerbaijani , the language of Azerbaijan. The Central Anatolia Region speaks Orta Anadolu . Karadeniz , spoken in the Eastern Black Sea Region and represented primarily by the Trabzon dialect, exhibits substratum influence from Greek in phonology and syntax ; it is also known as Laz dialect (not to be confused with

8832-438: The banks of the Kızılırmak River , during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1900–1650 BC). The early history of the Hittite kingdom is known through four "cushion-shaped" tablets, (classified as KBo 3.22, KBo 17.21+, KBo 22.1, and KBo 22.2), not made in Ḫattuša, but probably created in Kussara , Nēša , or another site in Anatolia, that may first have been written in the 18th century BC, in Old Hittite language, and three of them using

8960-431: The bend of the Kızılırmak River (Hittite Marassantiya, Greek Halys ) was considered the core of the Empire, and some Hittite laws make a distinction between "this side of the river" and "that side of the river". For example, the bounty for an escaped slave who had fled beyond the river is higher than for a slave caught on the near side. To the west and south of the core territory lay the region known as Luwiya in

9088-441: The biblical Hittites. Others, such as Max Müller , agreed that Khatti was probably Kheta , but proposed connecting it with Biblical Kittim rather than with the Biblical Hittites . Sayce's identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century; and the name "Hittite" has become attached to the civilization uncovered at Boğazköy. During sporadic excavations at Boğazköy ( Hattusa ) that began in 1906,

9216-402: The brief reign of his eldest son, Arnuwanda II, another son, Mursili II , became king ( c.  1330 BC ). Having inherited a position of strength in the east, Mursili was able to turn his attention to the west, where he attacked Arzawa. At a point when the Hittites were weakened by the tularemia epidemic, the Arzawans attacked the Hittites, who repelled the attack by sending infected rams to

9344-407: The capital in a state of near-anarchy. Mursili was assassinated by his brother-in-law Hantili I during his journey back to Hattusa or shortly after his return home, and the Hittite Kingdom was plunged into chaos. Hantili took the throne. He was able to escape multiple murder attempts on himself, however, his family did not. His wife, Harapsili and her son were murdered. In addition, other members of

9472-471: The city Arinna can be identified with this site or was nearby. During the reign of king Tudhaliya IV (c. 1245-1215 BC) drought devestated the country leading to the construction of a series of dams throughout the Hittite Empire. The king also imported grain from Egypt to avoid famine. The Gölpınar dam , located 1.5 kilometers to the south of Alaca Höyük, was dedicated to the goddess Hebat . It has been excavated since 2002 and made usable again in 2006 because

9600-412: The coastal region of Adaniya, renaming it Kizzuwatna (later Cilicia ). Throughout the remainder of the 16th century BC, the Hittite kings were held to their homelands by dynastic quarrels and warfare with the Hurrians. The Hurrians became the center of power in Anatolia. The campaigns into Amurru and southern Mesopotamia may be responsible for the reintroduction of cuneiform writing into Anatolia, since

9728-527: The corruption of "the princes", believed to be his sons. The lack of sources leads to uncertainty of how the corruption was addressed. On Hattusili I's deathbed, he chose his grandson, Mursili I (or Murshilish I), as his heir. Mursili continued the conquests of Hattusili I. In 1595 BC ( middle chronology ) or 1587 BC (low middle chronology), Mursili I conducted a great raid down the Euphrates River, bypassing Assyria and sacking Mari and Babylon , ejecting

9856-521: The development of iron- smelting to the Hittites, who were believed to have monopolized ironworking during the Bronze Age. This theory has been increasingly contested in the 21st century, with the Late Bronze Age collapse, and subsequent Iron Age , seeing the slow, comparatively continuous spread of ironworking technology across the region. While there are some iron objects from Bronze Age Anatolia ,

9984-506: The diaspora speak the language with native fluency. In 2005, 93% of the population of Turkey were native speakers of Turkish, about 67 million at the time, with Kurdish languages making up most of the remainder. Azerbaijani language , official in Azerbaijan, is mutually intelligible with Turkish and speakers of both languages can understand them without noticeable difficulty, especially when discussion comes on ordinary, daily language. Turkey has very good relations with Azerbaijan, with

10112-462: The diplomatic language of the time, or in the various dialects of the Hittite confederation. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara , Turkey houses the richest collection of Hittite and Anatolian artifacts. The Hittite kingdom was centered on the lands surrounding Hattusa and Neša (Kültepe), known as "the land Hatti" ( Ha-at-ti ). After Hattusa was made the capital, the area encompassed by

10240-453: The earliest Hittite texts. This terminology was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to the language that originated in these areas as Luwian . Prior to the rise of Kizzuwatna, the heart of that territory in Cilicia was first referred to by the Hittites as Adaniya . Upon its revolt from the Hittites during

10368-563: The first comprehensive Turkic language dictionary and map of the geographical distribution of Turkic speakers in the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk ( ديوان لغات الترك ). Following the adoption of Islam around the year 950 by the Kara-Khanid Khanate and the Seljuq Turks , who are both regarded as the ethnic and cultural ancestors of the Ottomans , the administrative language of these states acquired

10496-494: The first major civilizations of Bronze Age West Asia . Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea , they settled in modern-day Turkey in the early 2nd millennium BC . The Hittites formed a series of polities in north-central Anatolia , including the kingdom of Kussara (before 1750 BC), the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom ( c.  1750 –1650 BC), and an empire centered on Hattusa (around 1650 BC). Known in modern times as

10624-478: The fog of obscurity and entered the "Hittite Empire period". Many changes were afoot during this time, not the least of which was a strengthening of the kingship. Settlement of the Hittites progressed in the Empire period. However, the Hittite people tended to settle in the older lands of south Anatolia rather than the lands of the Aegean. As this settlement progressed, treaties were signed with neighboring peoples. During

10752-412: The formal style of Ottoman Turkish that had been common at the time amongst statesmen and the educated strata of society in the setting of formal speeches and documents. After the language reform, the Turkish education system discontinued the teaching of literary form of Ottoman Turkish and the speaking and writing ability of society atrophied to the point that, in later years, Turkish society would perceive

10880-482: The foundation of the modern state of Turkey and the script reform , the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established in 1932 under the patronage of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk , with the aim of conducting research on Turkish. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a language reform to replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents. By banning

11008-479: The founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The Hittites attracted the attention of Turkish archaeologists such as Halet Çambel and Tahsin Özgüç . During this period, the new field of Hittitology also influenced the naming of Turkish institutions, such as the state-owned Etibank ("Hittite bank"), and the foundation of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara , built 200 kilometers (120 mi) west of

11136-466: The frequent raids of the Kaska people living in the mountainous region to the north. Excavations by the Turkish archaeologists Remzi Oğuz Arık and Hamit Koşay resumed in 1935 under the personal instructions of Atatürk who contributed from his own budget. In 1968 the work was under the direction of Mahmut A. The work, which continued until 1970, revealed considerable local wealth and achievement even before

11264-540: The island of Cyprus , before that too fell to Assyria. The last king, Šuppiluliuma II also managed to win some victories, including a naval battle against Alashiya off the coast of Cyprus. But the Assyrians, under Ashur-resh-ishi I had by this time annexed much Hittite territory in Asia Minor and Syria, driving out and defeating the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I in the process, who also had eyes on Hittite lands. The Sea Peoples had already begun their push down

11392-520: The kind partly preserved later in Anatolian," and that their descendants later moved into Anatolia at an unknown time but maybe as early as 3000 BC. J. P. Mallory also thought it was likely that the Anatolians reached the Near East from the north either via the Balkans or the Caucasus in the 3rd millennium BC. According to Parpola, the appearance of Indo-European speakers from Europe into Anatolia, and

11520-468: The lack of ü vowel in the Trabzon dialect means -un would be used in both of these cases — elun and kitabun . With the exceptions stated below, Turkish words are oxytone (accented on the last syllable). Turkish has two groups of sentences: verbal and nominal sentences. In the case of a verbal sentence, the predicate is a finite verb, while the predicate in nominal sentence will have either no overt verb or

11648-466: The language are found in loanwords and may be categorised as falling diphthongs usually analyzed as a sequence of /j/ and a vowel. The principle of vowel harmony, which permeates Turkish word-formation and suffixation, is due to the natural human tendency towards economy of muscular effort. This principle is expressed in Turkish through three rules: The second and third rules minimize muscular effort during speech. More specifically, they are related to

11776-504: The language on the inscriptions was the Old Turkic language written using the Old Turkic alphabet , which has also been referred to as "Turkic runes" or "runiform" due to a superficial similarity to the Germanic runic alphabets . With the Turkic expansion during Early Middle Ages ( c.  6th –11th centuries), peoples speaking Turkic languages spread across Central Asia , covering

11904-506: The letters from a "kingdom of Kheta "—apparently located in the same general region as the Mesopotamian references to "land of Hatti "—were written in standard Akkadian cuneiform, but in an unknown language; although scholars could interpret its sounds, no one could understand it. Shortly after this, Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the "kingdom of Kheta " mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with

12032-513: The linguistic concept of accent , which is also covered with these words. Several universities, as well as a dedicated work-group of the Turkish Language Association, carry out projects investigating Turkish dialects. As of 2002 work continued on the compilation and publication of their research as a comprehensive dialect- atlas of the Turkish language. Although the Ottoman alphabet, being slightly more phonetically ambiguous than

12160-542: The mountains south of Kussara . The founding of the Hittite Kingdom is attributed to either Labarna I or Hattusili I (the latter might also have had Labarna as a personal name), who conquered the area south and north of Hattusa. Hattusili I campaigned as far as the Semitic Amorite kingdom of Yamkhad in Syria , where he attacked, but did not capture, its capital of Aleppo . Hattusili I did eventually capture Hattusa and

12288-589: The next historical phase, that of Kültepe ". A gold-handled dagger was found at Alacahöyük, and it is now in the collection of the Ankara's Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. It was excavated from grave K (find No. Al.K.14) and may be dated as early as 2500 BC. Japanese scholars have issued a preliminary report about the composition of the dagger in 2008, and they concluded that the dagger was probably made from meteoritic iron. Layers 4-2 Hittite period : The standing and distinguishing remains at Alaca Höyük, however, such as

12416-673: The northerners retained language isolate Hattian names, and the southerners adopted Indo-European Hittite and Luwian names. Zalpuwa first attacked Kanesh under Uhna in 1833 BC. And during this kārum period, when the merchant colony of the Old Assyrian Empire was flourishing in the site, and before the conquest of Pithana , the following local kings reigned in Kaneš: Ḫurmili (prior to 1790 BC), Paḫanu (a short time in 1790 BC), Inar ( c.  1790 –1775 BC), and Waršama ( c.  1775 –1750 BC). One set of tablets, known collectively as

12544-453: The number is comparable to that of iron objects found in Egypt , Mesopotamia and in other places from the same period; and only a small number of these objects are weapons. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry suggests "that most or all irons from the Bronze Age are derived from" meteorites . The Hittite military also made successful use of chariots . Modern interest in the Hittites increased with

12672-485: The personal ending, so for example Necla, siz öğretmen misiniz ? ('Necla, are you [formal, plural] a teacher?'). Word order in simple Turkish sentences is generally subject–object–verb , as in Korean and Latin , but unlike English, for verbal sentences and subject-predicate for nominal sentences. However, as Turkish possesses a case-marking system, and most grammatical relations are shown using morphological markers, often

12800-435: The phenomenon of labial assimilation: if the lips are rounded (a process that requires muscular effort) for the first vowel they may stay rounded for subsequent vowels. If they are unrounded for the first vowel, the speaker does not make the additional muscular effort to round them subsequently. Grammatical affixes have "a chameleon-like quality", and obey one of the following patterns of vowel harmony: Practically,

12928-611: The power of the Assyrians. The Assyrian king Shalmaneser I had seized the opportunity to vanquish Hurria and Mitanni, occupy their lands, and expand up to the head of the Euphrates , while Muwatalli was preoccupied with the Egyptians. The Hittites had vainly tried to preserve the Mitanni Kingdom with military support. Assyria now posed just as great a threat to Hittite trade routes as Egypt ever had. Muwatalli's son, Urhi-Teshub , took

13056-638: The preceding vowel. In native Turkic words, the sounds [c] , [ɟ] , and [l] are mainly in complementary distribution with [k] , [ɡ] , and [ɫ] ; the former set occurs adjacent to front vowels and the latter adjacent to back vowels. The distribution of these phonemes is often unpredictable, however, in foreign borrowings and proper nouns. In such words, [c] , [ɟ] , and [l] often occur with back vowels: some examples are given below. However, there are minimal pairs that distinguish between these sounds, such as kar [kɑɾ] "snow" vs kâr [cɑɾ] "profit". Turkish orthography reflects final-obstruent devoicing ,

13184-440: The principles of i-type vowel harmony in practice: Türkiye' dir ("it is Turkey"), kapı dır ("it is the door"), but gün dür ("it is the day"), palto dur ("it is the coat"). These are four word-classes that are exceptions to the rules of vowel harmony: The road sign in the photograph above illustrates several of these features: The rules of vowel harmony may vary by regional dialect. The dialect of Turkish spoken in

13312-535: The regulatory body for Turkish is the Turkish Language Association ( Türk Dil Kurumu or TDK), which was founded in 1932 under the name Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti ("Society for Research on the Turkish Language"). The Turkish Language Association was influenced by the ideology of linguistic purism : indeed one of its primary tasks was the replacement of loanwords and of foreign grammatical constructions with equivalents of Turkish origin. These changes, together with

13440-477: The reign of Ammuna , it assumed the name of Kizzuwatna and successfully expanded northward to encompass the lower Anti-Taurus Mountains as well. To the north lived the mountain people called the Kaskians . To the southeast of the Hittites lay the Hurrian empire of Mitanni . At its peak during the reign of Muršili II , the Hittite empire stretched from Arzawa in the west to Mitanni in the east, and included many of

13568-411: The remains published. In 1907, the Ottoman archaeologist Theodor Makridi Bey carried out brief explorations here for two weeks. In the 1910s, German teams discovered royal tombs dating to the third millennium BC, as well as a Hittite town of the second millennium BC. The impressive sphinx gate surrounded by stone reliefs marked its entrance. The town was heavily fortified with walls and towers due to

13696-428: The results of the language reform. Owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the older terms of Arabic or Persian origin, the younger generations favor new expressions. It is considered particularly ironic that Atatürk himself, in his lengthy speech to the new Parliament in 1927, used

13824-411: The royal family were killed by Zidanta I , who was then murdered by his own son, Ammuna . All of the internal unrest among the Hittite royal family led to a decline of power. The Hurrians, a people living in the mountainous region along the upper Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern south east Turkey, took advantage of the situation to seize Aleppo and the surrounding areas for themselves, as well as

13952-519: The same period as the Royal Tombs of Ur and the Troy excavation level II. The tombs of typical shaft design, about 1.5 meters in depth, sealed by wooden beams, They contained the dead with folded legs facing west. The heads and legs of bulls were placed on platforms and the dead were richly adorned with gold fibulae , diadems, and belt buckles and repoussé gold-leaf figures. Seven metal figurines were found in

14080-604: The so-called "Old Script" (OS); although most of the remaining tablets survived only as Akkadian copies made in the 14th and 13th centuries BC. These reveal a rivalry within two branches of the royal family up to the Middle Kingdom; a northern branch first based in Zalpuwa and secondarily Hattusa , and a southern branch based in Kussara (still not found) and the former Assyrian colony of Kanesh . These are distinguishable by their names;

14208-510: The southern branch of the royal family, against the northern branch who had fixed on Hattusa as capital. Another set, the Tale of Zalpuwa, supports Zalpuwa and exonerates the later Ḫattušili I from the charge of sacking Kanesh . Anitta was succeeded by Zuzzu ( r. 1720–1710 BC); but sometime in 1710–1705 BC, Kanesh was destroyed, taking the long-established Assyrian merchant trading system with it. A Kussaran noble family survived to contest

14336-500: The speech to be so alien to listeners that it had to be "translated" three times into modern Turkish: first in 1963, again in 1986, and most recently in 1995. The past few decades have seen the continuing work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language, mostly from English. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance. However,

14464-428: The subject of debate. The standards are cast in copper, many in the form of flat circles, half-circles or squares that are filled with an openwork network of cross bars, central crosses, and swastikas. Leonard Woolley found that the Royal Tombs "seem to belong to the end of a period, as marked by a stratum of destruction and the burning of the citadel. The culture which the tomb objects illustrate does not continue into

14592-476: The succession was not legally fixed, enabling "War of the Roses" -style rivalries between northern and southern branches. The next monarch of note following Mursili I was Telepinu ( c.  1500 BC ), who won a few victories to the southwest, apparently by allying himself with one Hurrian state (Kizzuwatna) against another (Mitanni). Telepinu also attempted to secure the lines of succession. The last monarch of

14720-551: The three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia . Erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan , these date back to the Second Turkic Khaganate (dated 682–744 CE). After the discovery and excavation of these monuments and associated stone slabs by Russian archaeologists in the wider area surrounding the Orkhon Valley between 1889 and 1893, it became established that

14848-532: The throne and ruled as king for seven years as Mursili III before being ousted by his uncle, Hattusili III after a brief civil war . In response to increasing Assyrian annexation of Hittite territory, he concluded a peace and alliance with Ramesses II (also fearful of Assyria), presenting his daughter's hand in marriage to the Pharaoh. The Treaty of Kadesh , one of the oldest completely surviving treaties in history, fixed their mutual boundaries in southern Canaan, and

14976-441: The time of the Hittites, with the earliest occupation dating from the 4th millennium BC. Tombs of the 3rd millennium BC feature metal vessels, jewelry, weapons, and pole finials of bulls, stags, as well as abstract forms often interpreted as solar symbols. Excavation at the site resumed in 1994, and is now directed by Dr. Aykut Çınaroğlu. In the excavations of 2002, 2003 and 2005, four new hieroglyphic Luwian documents were uncovered,

15104-434: The timely arrival of Egyptian reinforcements prevented total Hittite victory. The Egyptians forced the Hittites to take refuge in the fortress of Kadesh , but their own losses prevented them from sustaining a siege. This battle took place in the 5th year of Ramesses ( c.  1274 BC by the most commonly used chronology). After this date, the power of both the Hittites and Egyptians began to decline yet again because of

15232-497: The tombs with four being made of bronze and 3 of silver. Many of the artefacts discovered at Alacahöyük, including magnificent gold and bronze objects found in the Royal Tombs, are housed today in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara . Among these artefacts are gold and electrum standing cups and other vessels. The most unusual are the Alaca Höyük bronze standards ; bulls or stags on pedestals whose purpose remains

15360-432: The twofold pattern (also referred to as the e-type vowel harmony) means that in the environment where the vowel in the word stem is formed in the front of the mouth, the suffix will take the e-form, while if it is formed in the back it will take the a-form. The fourfold pattern (also called the i-type) accounts for rounding as well as for front/back. The following examples, based on the copula -dir ("[it] is"), illustrate

15488-410: The usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred foreign words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, it also opted for reviving Old Turkish words which had not been used for centuries. In 1935, the TDK published a bilingual Ottoman-Turkish /Pure Turkish dictionary that documents

15616-517: The water source was located inside the reservoir. In the late 13th century BC, drier climate conditions ultimately led to the Collapse of the Bronze Age . Modern assessment finds that the site continued as a flourishing community to the end of the Late Bronze Age. There was also a sizable occupation in Phrygian times. The site was probed by George Perrot and Ernest Chantre in the late 1800s and drawings of

15744-500: The widow of Tutankhamen . That son was evidently murdered before reaching his destination, and this alliance was never consummated. However, the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC) once more began to grow in power with the ascension of Ashur-uballit I in 1365 BC. Ashur-uballit I attacked and defeated Mattiwaza the Mitanni king despite attempts by the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I, now fearful of growing Assyrian power, attempting to preserve his throne with military support. The lands of

15872-621: The world wars. Kültepe was successfully excavated by Professor Tahsin Özgüç from 1948 until his death in 2005. Smaller scale excavations have also been carried out in the immediate surroundings of Hattusa, including the rock sanctuary of Yazılıkaya , which contains numerous rock reliefs portraying the Hittite rulers and the gods of the Hittite pantheon. The Hittites used a variation of cuneiform called Hittite cuneiform . Archaeological expeditions to Hattusa have discovered entire sets of royal archives on cuneiform tablets, written either in Akkadian ,

16000-406: Was credited for the foundation of the Hittite Empire. "Hattusili was king, and his sons, brothers, in-laws, family members, and troops were all united. Wherever he went on campaign he controlled the enemy land with force. He destroyed the lands one after the other, took away their power, and made them the borders of the sea. When he came back from campaign, however, each of his sons went somewhere to

16128-483: Was largely unintelligible to the period's everyday Turkish. The everyday Turkish, known as kaba Türkçe or "vulgar Turkish", spoken by the less-educated lower and also rural members of society, contained a higher percentage of native vocabulary and served as basis for the modern Turkish language. While visiting the region between Adıyaman and Adana , Evliya Çelebi recorded the "Turkman language" and compared it with his own Turkish: Reforms Kemalism After

16256-536: Was one of only two or three languages in the Hurro-Urartian family ). There were also Assyrian colonies in the region during the Old Assyrian Empire (2025–1750 BC); it was from the Assyrian speakers of Upper Mesopotamia that the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script . It took some time before the Hittites established themselves following the collapse of the Old Assyrian Empire in the mid-18th century BC, as

16384-450: Was signed in the 21st year of Rameses (c. 1258 BC). Terms of this treaty included the marriage of one of the Hittite princesses to Ramesses. Hattusili's son, Tudhaliya IV , was the last strong Hittite king able to keep the Assyrians out of the Hittite heartland to some degree at least, though he too lost much territory to them, and was heavily defeated by Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria in the Battle of Nihriya . He even temporarily annexed

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