Palaic is an extinct

Indo-European language The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia ( ...

, attested in

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

tablets in

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

Hattusa Hattusa, also Hattuşa, Ḫattuša, Hattusas, or Hattusha, was the capital of the Hittites, Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age during two distinct periods. Its ruins lie near modern Boğazkale, Turkey (originally Boğazköy) within the great ...

, the capital of the

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...

. Palaic, which was apparently spoken mainly in northern Anatolia, is generally considered to be one of four primary sub-divisions of the

Anatolian languages The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia. The best known Anatolian language is Hittite, which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European language. Undiscovered until the late ...

, alongside Hittite (central Anatolia), Luwic (southern Anatolia) and Lydian (western Anatolia). Its name in Hittite is ''palaumnili'', or "of the people of Pala"; Pala was probably to the northwest of the Hittite core area, so in the northwest of present mainland

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The region was overrun by the

Kaskians The Kaska (also Kaška, later Tabal (state), Tabalian Kasku and Gasga) were a loosely affiliated Bronze Age non-Indo-European tribal people, who spoke the unclassified Kaskian language and lived in mountainous East Pontus (region), Pontic Anatolia ...

in the 15th century BC, and the language likely went out of daily use at that time.

Sources

The entire corpus of Palaic spans only CTH 751-754 in Emmanuel Laroche's catalog of Hittite texts; in addition Hittite texts elsewhere cite passages in Palaic in reference to the weather god Zaparwa ( Hittite Ziparwa), the leading god of the land of Pala. In particular, CTH 750, a festival in Hittite for Ziparwa and associated deities, includes passages stating, "The Old Woman speaks the words of the bread in Palaic," or alternately "the words of the meal," though no Palaic passages are quoted. The Palaic-language texts are all from a religious context, with ritual and mythological content. In addition to Zaparwa, the Palaumnili-speakers worshipped a sun deity Tiyaz ( Luwian Tiwaz), the Hattian goddess Kataḫzip/wuri, and several others.

Phonology

Melchert reconstructs the following phonemic inventory for Palaic: However, Melchert claims that, instead of pharyngeals, "a pair of velar fricatives is equally possible".

Consonants

Vowels

The phonemic status of /e/ and /eː/ is uncertain.

Morphology

In terms of its morphology, Palaic is a fairly typical specimen of Indo-European. Palaic shared common innovations with Luwian not present in Old Hittite, suggesting a prior Luwian-Palaic linguistic complex. It has been characterized as "more conservative than Hittite" and heavily influenced by the Hattic language, though caution is prescribed for the latter assertion given the paucity of available materials.

Noun

Palaic shows the same gender distinction as seen in Hittite, i.e. animate vs. inanimate. It distinguishes two numbers, singular and plural, and at least six cases:

nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...

, vocative, accusative,

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

, dative, and locative. Old Hittite has the genitive singular suffix ''-aš'' circa 1600 BC (compare

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

''*-os''); where

Cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

Luwian instead uses the ''-ašša/i-'' adjectival suffix. Palaic, on the northern border of both, like later

Hieroglyphic Luwian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian languages, Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya ...

has both an ''-aš'' genitive and an ''-aša-'' adjectival suffix. Palaic also has similar pronoun forms to Old Hittite.

Verb

The verb in Palaic is inflected for number (singular and plural), person, tense (present and preterite), and mood (indicative and imperative). It also has two voices, active and medio-passive. Palaic is considered to have had a "high number of attestations of the suffix -ina," all of which were transitive.Sasseville, David. Anatolian Verbal Stem Formation: Luwian, Lycian and Lydian. Netherlands, Brill, 2020, p. 528.

References

External links

*
Catalog of Hittite TextsGenitive Case and Possessive Adjective in Anatolian
by Craig Melchert {{DEFAULTSORT:Palaic Language Anatolian languages

Language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

Languages attested from the 2nd millennium BC Languages extinct in the 14th century BC