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The Original Diphthongs in Hittite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

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

The development of the original diphthongs in Hittite has seemed to be a peculiarly difficult problem; but evidence has gradually accumulated until something like a system has emerged. We may now say that all the original short diphthongs appear in Hittite as monophthongs, whereas the original long diphthongs retain their diphthongal character. It is not always possible to distinguish with certainty between the several diphthongs; but it will promote clearness if I treat them separately, as far as possible.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 6 , Issue 1-Part1 , March 1930 , pp. 25 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © 1930 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 See especially Lang. 5. 139–46.

1a I propose to use this term (abbreviated IH) for the assumed common ancestor of Indo-European and Hittite. The term Pre-Indo-European is needed in another sense.

2 See Lang. 5. 9, 144 f.

3 See Lang. 5. 139–46.

4 For this meaning, see Transactions of the American Philological Association 58. 12. 7–9.

5 See Lang. 4. 123 f.

6 For Hittite h = bh initial, see Lang. 3. 109–22.

7 Lang. 4. 159.

8 See Friedrich, ZA NF 1. 16, 143; Götze, Hattušiliš 106.

9 Lang. 4. 230.

10 See Journal of the American Oriental Society 47. 174–84.

11 Another possibility is that we should equate the Hittite genitive with Skt. atas, IE*etos ‘hence’. If so the abl. etez is a contamination of this with the ablative ending ez of other pronouns. From the genitive and ablative the t must have spread to other cases. The chief reason for prefering the theory stated above is that the declension of damaiš ‘other’ indicates a Hittite stem ai- along side of et-; see below p. 32.

12 Commonly written -ši, but -še occurs in 2 Boghazköi-Texte in Umschrift 8 = Keilschrift-Urkunden aus Boghazköi 1. 16. 2. 32.

13 See Sommer, Handbuch der Lateinischen Laut- und Formenlehre2 409 f.

14 See Lang. 4. 163.

15 See Forrer, Forschungen 1. 991, 101. Correct my analysis in American Journal of Semitic Languages 44. 225, 228.

16 This etymology is, on the whole, preferable to the connection of tuhszi with Gk. δ∈ύομαι which I suggested in Lang. 4. 161.

17 See Lang. 4. 229.

18 American Journal of Philology 48. 251 f.

19 A few years ago I identified (JAOS 47. 180 f.) Hittite -ma with IE *me in Skt. sma, Aeolic μμ∈ *s-me, etc. It is now fairly clear that Hittite a cannot represent IE e, and so I must substitute the etymology given above. Gk. μv is no doubt full grade beside *m. I am no longer sure of a connection between these forms and the me of μμ∈, etc.

20 Lang. 4. 4 f.

21 See Lang. 4. 164.

22 See Lang. 5. 142–5.

23 Possibly the ending of aššawi is to be identified with that of Vedic sānavi, loc. of sānu ‘back’, etc., on the basis of IH -oi. Gk. , etc. cannot be connected with our Hittite forms.

24 See Brugmann, Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik der Indogermanischen Sprachen2 2. 2. 175, and references.

25 La Cinquième Déclinaison Latine (Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Seiskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 11. 5, 1926), 22–6 and passim. Cf. H. Hirt, Indogermanische Grammatik 3. 40, 75 f.

26 I am aware of the opinion that sakhā owes its declension to the analogy of the nouns of relationship; but, since we must assume such an i-stem declension any way, it is more likely that the nouns of relationship merely operated to retain an inherited peculiarity.

27 Lang. 3. 215–25. especially 223 ff.

28 Other examples of m from mn are tarma(i)- ‘mark off’; Lat. termino (Lang. 5 11); ištamaš- ‘hear’; ištamanaš ‘ear’; arrummaš (<*arrumnaš), genitive of the infinitive arrummar (the genitives like tiyawwas : tiyawwar—instead of *tiyaunaš—are analogical); arkammaš ‘tribute’ from Akkadian ARGAMANNU (see Götze, Madduwattaš 130 f.). See also Ehelolf, ZA NF 2. 313 and fn. 6.

29 See Kellogg, Some Indo-European Coincidences in Hittite 38 f., 41; Sturtevant, Lang. 2. 33 f., 3. 161–8, 215–25.

30 On these problems, see Leumann, Stolz-Schmalz Lateinische Grammatik5 334 f., and Hirt, Indogermanische Grammatik 4. 268 f.

31 In view of Hittite nai ‘he turns, sends’, probably Skt. nināya: nayati ‘leads’ stands for earlier *nināi. Probably other perfects in -āya have a similar history; -au did not in all cases supplant -ai as a perfect ending.

32 Lang. 3. 223.

33 Since cuneiform characters cannot write two consonants at the end of a word, we must reckon with the possibility that na-a-iš-ta and na-a-iš are merely alternative orthographies for naišt. But if so, we should expect *e-eš for e-eš-ta ‘he was’, *e-ep for e-ep-ta ‘he took’, etc. Until such forms are found it is safer to assume that na-a-iš-ta and na-a-iš are different although equivalent forms.

34 See Sommer and Ehelolf, Boghazköi-Studien 10. 4. For the loss of final n in the accusative see AJP 48. 249 f., and Lang. 5. 140 ff.

35 On this word and the iterative-durative uškišk-, see Götze, Madd. 106 ff.

36 See Walde-Pokorny, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen 1. 26 f.