Luwian (sometimes spelled Luvian) is part of the Anatolian branch of the Indo European language family and has been preserved in three forms: (1) Cuneiform Luwian, (2) Hieroglyphic-Luwian and (3), the somewhat later Lycian. Anatolia ( Greek: ανατολή anatolē or anatolí, rising of the sun or East; compare Orient and Levant, by popular etymology Turkish Anadolu to ana mother and dolu filled), also called by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is a region of Southwest Asia which corresponds today to the Asian portion of... Indo-European is originally a linguistic term, referring to the Indo-European language family. ... Cuneiform script The Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. ... Hieroglyphs are a system of writing used by the Ancient Egyptians, using a combination of logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic elements. ... Lycian was an Indo-European language, one of the Anatolian languages, that was spoken in the Iron age city-state of Lycia in Anatolia, present day Turkey. ...

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. Arzawa is a region or kingdom in what was later to be known as Lydia in Western Anatolia. ... Hittite can refer to either: The ancient Anatolian people called the Hittites; or The Hittite language, an ancient Indo-European language they spoke. ... The Bronze Age is a period in a civilizations development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and alloys it to cast bronze. ... Iron Age Axe found on Gotland This article is about the archaeological period known as the Iron Age, for the mythological Iron Age see Iron Age (mythology). ... Amorite (Hebrew ’emōrî, Egyptian Amar, Akkadian Amurrū (corresponding to Sumerian MAR.TU or Martu) refers to a Semitic people who occupied the middle Euphrates area from the second half of the third millennium BC and also appear in the Tanakh. ... Aramaic is a Semitic language with a four-thousand year history. ... This article is about the land called Canaan. ... Hejaz (also Hijaz, Hedjaz) is a region in the northwest of present-day Saudi Arabia; its main city is Jeddah, but it is probably better-known for the holy city of Mecca. ... Palestine (Latin: Syria Palæstina; Hebrew: פלשתינה Palestina, ארץ־ישראל Eretz Yisrael; Arabic: فلسطين Filasṭīn) is the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the banks of the Jordan River, plus various adjoining lands to the east. ... Amorite (Hebrew ’emōrî, Egyptian Amar, Akkadian Amurrū (corresponding to Sumerian MAR.TU or Martu) refers to a Semitic people who occupied the middle Euphrates area from the second half of the third millennium BC and also appear in the Tanakh. ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ...

Luwian is significant as it appears to prove that the Proto-Indo-European language had three distinct sets of velar consonants: palatovelars, plain velars, and labiovelars (Melchert 1987). See Pie (disambiguation) for other uses of PIE. The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages. ...

References

• Melchert, H. Craig. 1987. PIE velars in Luvian. In Studies in memory of Warren Cowgill (1929–1985). Papers from the Fourth East Coast Indo-European Conference, Cornell University, June 6–9, 1985, ed. C. Watkins, 182–204. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses of the name Cornell, see Cornell (disambiguation). ... Calvert Watkins is a professor Emeritus of linguistics and the classics at Harvard University. ...  Berlin? (pronounced: , German ) is the capital of Germany and its largest city, with 3,426,000 inhabitants (as of January 2005); down from 4. ...

External link

• Arzawa, to the west, throws light on Hittites