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Can Hittite h Be Derived from Indo-Hittite ?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

E. H. Sturtevant
E. H. Sturtevant*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Abstract

[Criticism of Kurylowiez' development of the theory that IE ǝ was a consonant. His studies have led to a number of acceptable etymologies; but these can be explained on the earlier assumptions, while a number of others are inconsistent with the theory, which as a whole cannot be maintained. Hittite h is the continuant of an Indo-Hittite consonant that was lost in Indo-European.]

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , June 1930, pp. 149 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © 1930 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Mémoire sur le Système Primitif des Voyelles dans les Langues Indo-Européennes 135 = Recueil des Publications Scientifiques 127.

2 ‘Les Effets du ǝ en Indoiranien’, Prace Filologiczne 11.201–43 (1927); ‘Originc Indoeuropéenne du Redoublement Attique’, Eos 30.206–10 (1927); ‘ǝ Indoeuropéen et h Hittite’, Symbolae Grammaticae Offertes à J. Rozwadowski 95–104 (1927); ‘Quelque Problèmes Métriques du Rigvéda’ Rocznik Orjentalistyczny 4. 196–218 (1928); ‘Le Type Védique gbhāyáti’, Étrennes de Linguistiques Offertes à M. Émile Benvéniste 51–62 (1928).

3 See Pedersen, Litter is 5. 156–9 (1928); Cuny, Revue des Études Anciennes 31. 290 (1929); Debrunner, Indogermanisches Jahrbuch 13. 66f. (1929); Pedersen notes that Cuny advanced a similar theory in the same Symbolae Grammaticae; but, since I have not seen this article, I must confine my remarks to Kurylowiez.

4 This is a development of a suggestion made by de Saussure, Bulletin de la Société do Linguistique de Paris 7. cxviii (1891), = Recueil des Publications Scientifiques 603.

5 Symbolae Grammaticac 97–104.

6 Language 4. 163 (1928).

7 For the meaning, see Götze, Kleinasiatische Forschungen 1. 231f.; Forrer, Forschungen 1. 203f.

8 Since the term Pre-Indo-Europcan is needed in another sense, I propose the name Indo-Hittite for the inferred common source of Indo-European and Hittite.

9 Why does Kurylowicz retain the mark of long quantity? His etymology requires the pronunciation hweš. For the orthography hu-u-iš = hwiš (or hweš), cf. American Journal of Philology 50. 363–5.

10 Lang. 3. 110–3 (1927).

11 See Sommer and Ehelolf, Boghazköi-Studien 10. 53f.; Götze, KlF 1. 2295.

12 See Götze, Madduwattaš 81–100; Sturtevant, Lang, 5. 8–14.

13 For the meaning, see Sturtevant, Transactions of the American Philological Association 58. 10f., line 8; and especially Götze, KlF 1. 2235.

14 See now Walde-Pokorny, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen 1. 212.

15 See Brugmann, Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik der Indogermanischen Sprachen 2 2. 3. 325.

16 See Walde-Pokorny VWIS 2. 12, 15.

17 Possibly h is a root-determinative that the IE forms never had; cf. my remarks on weh in Lang 4. 161.

18 See AJP 50.360–9. This process accounts for some at least of the doublets in *nā and *neu (Brugmann, Grand. 2 2. 3. 325).

19 See Lang. 2. 33f. (1928), 3. 161–8, 4. 165.

20 See Friedrich, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie NF 3. 196 f.; Götze, KlF 1. 186.

21 See Lang. 5. 10.

22 See Lang. 5. 228. Since the above was written Friedrich, Staatsverträge 2. 1711, has shown that waggari is a hi-conjugation verb with stem waggar-. It probably has no connection either with Hitt. waki or with Lat. vagor.

23 See Friedrich, ZA NF 1. 185f.; Sommer and Ehelolf, Boghazköi-Studien 10. 73f.; Götze, Hattušiliš 98ff., Madd. 45; Forrer, Forschungen 1. 64. These scholars (with the exception of Forrer, who does not discuss the question) regard ‘take up’ as the primary meaning of the word; but the numerous passages cited by them indicate rather a primary meaning ‘get’. Delaporte, Grammaire de la Langue Hittite 101, suggests the meaning ‘play’ (a musical instrument) for the occurrence in Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi 4. 9. 5. 30, 36, a meaning which would strengthen the above etymology, in view of OE hearpe, OIsl. harpa, etc., ‘a pluck-instrument, a harp’. But Götze's (Hatt. 99) interpretation of the passage may after all be correct.

24 Forrer, Forschungen 2. 30.

25 Cf. Hrozný, Sprache der Hethiter 40; Holma, Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 33. 31f.

26 See Götze, Madd. 142.

27 See Walde-Pokorny, VWIS 1. 92 ff., and references.

28 Cf. Lang. 5. 145.

29 See Hrozný, SH 763; Sommer and Ehelolf, BoSt. 10. 51; Götze, Madd. 136.

30 See Ehelolf, ZA NF 2. 313; Götze, Madd. 131.

31 See Götze, Hatt. 95f.

32 See Walde-Pokorny, VWIS 1. 25lf.

33 See Götze, Hatt. 96.