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The Gutturals in Hittite and Indo-European

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

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

[Hittite shows no trace of assibilation or palatalization of the gutturals, and so the development of the Indo-European palatals seems to have been subsequent to the Indo-Hittite period. Hittite shows an independent phoneme (u or ) corresponding to the labial element of the IE labiovelare, and this state of affairs must be assumed for IH also. The loss of this labial sound had begun under certain circumstances in IH, and it continued in primitive IE and in the historic IE languages.]

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 6 , Issue 3-Part1 , September 1930, pp. 213 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © 1930 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Transactions of the American Philological Association 60. 25–37.

2 See Hrozný, Journal of the Society for Oriental Research 6. 691; Götze, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 34. 183; Zimmern, Streitberg-Festgabe, 439.

3 American Journal of Philology 48. 249–53 (1927).

4 Cf. Language 6. 30.

5 See Lang. 6, 26.

6 Indogermanische Forschungen 41. 369 f. (1923); cf. Sommer, Boghazköi-Studien 7. 55 and fn. 2.

7 See Sommer, BoSt. 7. 352; Friedrich, ZA NF 1. 179; 2. 49.

8 See Götze, Madduwattaš 115–8.

9 Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen 1. 128.

10 Hrozný, Code Hittite 70; Zimmern, Orientalistische Literatur-Zeitung 25. 299 (1922).

11 See Boisacq, Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Grecque, s.v. καμάρα.

12 Ap. Friedrich ZA NF 5. 80 f.

13 IF 41. 372–6. See also ZA NF 5. 37 f.

14 J. Kurylowicz, Symbolae Grammaticae in Honorem Ioanis Rozwadowski 101. I formerly (Lang. 3. 119) compared Goth, bairhts bright', etc., on the assumption that initial bh became Hitt. h. I expect to show soon that this assumption is false. No further account will be taken in this paper of the etymologies that I have based upon it.

15 Le Groupement des Dialectes Indo-Européens 41 f.

16 See Götze, KF 1. 109, fn. 1, and references.

17 See Friedrich, ZA NF 2. 279 and references; Götze, Madd. 114 f.

18 See Forrer, Forschungen 1. 183 ff.

19 Hrozný, CH 146. 51, 53; Sommer and Ehelolf, BoSt. 10. 66. I do not understand šalikti and šalikzi (Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi 2. 2. 2. 56; Keilschrift-Urkunden aus Boghazköi 7. 1. 2. 1); but they scarcely belong here. The context of salikaru (KUB 9. 4. 3. 21) is incomplete; but it does not favor the meaning ‘σuγγíγv∈τaι‘.

20 For witiš year', see now Hrozný, Archiv Orientální 1. 282 f.

21 Zimmern, OLZ 25. 300 f. (1922); Sommer, BoSt. 7. 22–32; Götze, Hattušiliš 561; Friedrich, ZA NF 5. 49 f.

22 See Sommer and Ehelolf, BoSt. 10. 73 f.; Götze, Hatt. 98–100; Friedrich, ZA NF 1. 185 f.

23 See Götze, Hatt. 79; Friedrich, Staatsverträge des Hatti-Reiches in Hethitischer Sprache 1. 88 f.

24 Cf. Lang. 3. 162, 6. 151, AJP 50. 365.

25 See AJP 48, 249 f., Lang. 5, 140 f. On the initial consonant, see Lang. 4. 231.

26 See Hrozný, SH 23; Forrer, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 76. 262. Sturtevant, Lang. 3. 121, 4. 231; Friedrich, ZA NF 5. 35 and fn. 5.

27 See Lang. 6. 25.

28 See AJP 50. 363 f.

29 Delaporte, Grammaire de la Langue Hittite 63 (§214).

30 Sommer and Ehelolf, BoSt. 10. 54; Götze, Hatt. 86, 124; Friedrich, Staatsverträge 2. 141.

31 Sommer and Ehelolf, BoSt. 10. 54.

32 Hrozný, SH 146 and fn. 5, 148.

33 Cf. Lang. 3. 163, AJP 50. 364 and fn. 15.

34 ZA NF 5. 39. f. (1929).

35 For citations and discussions of this verb, see Hrozný, SH 42 f., 61 f.; Zimmern, Streitberg-Festgabe 439; Ehelolf, Kleinasiatische Forschungen 1. 137–142; Friedrich, Staatsvertr 176.

36 See Sommer, BoSt. 7. 60.

37 See Götze, KlF. 1. 186.

38 Le Groupement des Dialectes Indo-Européennes 40.

39 See Walde-Pokorny, VWIS 1. 34.

40 Hrozný, SH 69 f., cites from an unnumbered fragment two passages that may well belong to a duplicate.

41 Yale Tablet 1. 10 = TAPA 58. 6. Cf. ne-ku-uz-zi, cited from a fragment by Hrozný, SH 691.

42 KBo. 5, 8, 3. 19. So Sommer, BoSt. 7. 36.

43 Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik der Indogermanischen Sprachen2 1. 596, 2. 1. 426, 435.

44 Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Grecque 6741.

45 Gioita 2. 128–30. Cf. Walde, Lateinisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch2 s.v. venio.

46 So Meillet, Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 23. 258 (1929). For the Hitt. word, see Hrozný, SH 243 f.; Götze, Hatt. 84, Madd. 603. For uwa = wa, see Sturtevant, AJP 50, 363–5.

47 Lang. 3. 220; 4. 160.

48 See Friedrich, ZA NF 3. 202; Götze, KlF 1. 192–7.

49 See Friedrich, ZA NF 5. 572.

50 For gu instead of g, see below p. 224.

51 For cognates in other languages, see Walde-Pokorny, VWIS 2. 413 f.

52 Possibly this process was assisted by phrases in which *γuμvós was preceded by a word ending in a; cf. Thucydides 3. 23 τà yvμvá, Diodorus 1. 76 τà πράγματα γνμνά.

53 See Sommer and Ehelolf, BoSt. 10. 10; Friedrich, ZA NF 2. 48 f.; Sommer, KlF 1. 120–4.

54 See Götze, Madd., 82 and references.

55 This proof is not really needed since the demonstration by Hermann, Kuhns Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung 41. 38–46 (1907) and Bloomfield, AJP 32. 36–57 (1911), that primitive Indic and primitive Indo-Iranian had stop-sounds in this series.

56 See Persson, Bezzenberger's Beiträge zur Kunde der Indogermanischen Sprachen 19. 275 f.

57 See Osthoff, Morphologische Untersuchungen 6. 1–69.

58 Several less certain examples are cited by Hirt, Indogermanische Grammatik 1. 232. Cf. also Reichelt, IF 40. 62 ff.

59 Cf. Brugmann-Thumb, Griechische Grammatik4 137 f.

60 These three particles are combined with the IE enclitic *ne in Skt. -cana, Av. -cina, OHG -gin; and Goth. -hurt. It is safe to say that the last-named had a pure velar in IE. (*qu-ne), and probably the others had also (*qe-ne, *qi-ne).

61 See Hrozný, SH 147.

62 See Forrer, Forschungen 1. 196.

63 See Friedrich, ZA NF 2. 46 f., Götze, Madd. 45 f., 62.

64 See Lang. 6. 27.

65 See Friedrich, ZA NF 1. 16.

66 See Friedrich, ZA NF 2. 54.

67 See Walde-Pokorny, VWIS 1. 14 f.

68 See Zupitza, Die Germanischen Gutturale 99. Lidén, Armenische Studien 41 ff., followed by Boisacq, s.v., separates θάπτω from this root and connects it with Arm. damban ‘tomb’.

69 See Walde-Pokorny, VWIS 2. 169.

70 Idg. Gramm. 1.232–41.