FACTOID #53: If you thought Antarctica was inhospitable, think again - its land area is only ninety-eight percent ice. Reassuringly, the other 2% is categorised as "barren rock".
Luwian (sometimes spelled Luwiyan) is an Anatolian language known in three forms: (1) Cuneiform Luwian, (2) Hieroglyphic-Luwian and (3), the somewhat later Lycian.
Luwian was among the languages spoken by population groups in Arzawa and the Hittite Empire (in modern Turkey), attested in the Bronze and early Iron ages. Luwian (and Hittite) groups are now believed by most academic specialists to have moved south into Amurru, Aram Naharaim, Canaan and the Hejaz (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia) after ca. the 14th century BC, and to have had an influence on the various West Semitic languages its speakers came into contact with (Amorite dialects and especially Hebrew). Hieroglyphic Luwian has been attested in areas of Syria and Palestine as late as the 7th century B.C.
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Arzawa, to the west, throws light on Hittites (http://pages.sbcglobal.net/zimriel/amc/arzawa.html)
The settlement of Troy starts in the Neolithic and continues forward into the Iron Age.
Major civilizations and peoples that have settled in or conquered Anatolia include the Colchians, Hattians, Luwians, Hittites, Phrygians, Cimmerians, Lydians, Persians, Celts, Tabals, Meshechs, Greeks, Pelasgians, Armenians, Romans, Goths, Kurds, Byzantines, Seljuk Turks, and Ottomans.
In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical center from which the Indo-European languages have radiated.
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