In the ancient literature the Proto Dravidians are called Kushites. Using boats the Kushites moved down ancient waterways many now dried up, to establish new towns in Asia and Europe after 3500 BC. The Kushites remained supreme around the world until 1400 1200 BC. During this period the Hua (Chinese) and Indo European (I E) speakers began to conquer the Kushites whose cities and economies were destroyed as a result of natural catastrophes which took place on the planet between 1400 1200 BC. Later, after 500 AD, Turkish speaking people began to settle parts of Central Asia. This is the reason behind the presence of the K s h element in many place names in Asia e.g., Kashgar, HinduKush, and Kosh. The HinduKush in Harappan times had lapis lazuli deposits.
Proto Saharans/Kushites expanded into Inner Asia from two primary points of dispersal : Iran and Anatolia. In Anatolia the Kushites were called Hattians and Kaska. In the 2nd millennium BC, the north and east of Anatolia was inhabited by non I E speakers.
Anatolia was divided into two lands “the land of Kanis” and the “land of Hatti”. The Hatti were related to the Kaska people who lived in the Pontic mountains.
Hattians lived in Anatolia. They worshipped Kasku and Kusuh. They were especially prominent in the Pontic mountains. Their sister nation in the Halys Basin were the Kaska tribes. The Kaska and Hattians share the same names for gods, along with personal and place names (1). The Kaska had a strong empire which was never defeated by the Hittites.
Singer (1981) has suggested that the Kaska, are remnants of the indigenous Hattian population which was forced northward by the Hittites. But at least as late as 1800 BC, Anatolia was basically settled by Hattians (2)
Anatolia was occupied by many Kushite groups,including the Kashkas and or Hatti. The Hatti , like the Dravidian speaking people were probably related . The Hatti were probably members of the Tehenu tribes.
The Tehenu was composed of various ethnic groups. One of the Tehenu tribes was identified by the Egyptians as the Hatiu or Haltiu.
During the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (2563-2423), namely during the reign of Sahure there is mention of the Tehenu people. Sahure referred to the Tehenu leader “Hati Tehenu” .(3) These Hatiu, may correspond to the Hatti speaking people of Anatolia. The Hatti people often referred to themselves as Kashkas or Kaskas.
The Hatti controlled the city state of Kussara. Kussara was situated in southern Anatolia.
The earliest known ruler of Kussara was Pitkhanas. It was his son Anitta (c. 1790-1750 BC) who expanded the Kussara empire through much of Anatolia.
Many researchers get the Hittites (Nesa) mixed up with the original settlers of Anatolia called Hatti according to Steiner “.[T]his discrepancy is either totally neglected and more or less skillfully veiled, or it is explained by the assumption that the Hittites when conquering the country of Hatti adjusted themselves to the Hattians adopting their personal names and worshipping their gods, out of reverence for a higher culture” .(4)
Neshili, was probably spoken by the Hatti, not the IE Hittite. Yet, this language is classified as an IE langauge. Researchers maintain that the Hatti spoke 'Hattili' or Khattili “language of the Hatti”, and the IE Hittites spoke "Neshumnili"/ Neshili .(5) Researchers maintain that only 10% of the terms in Neshumnili is IE. This supports the view that Nesumnili may have been a lingua franca.
It is clear that the Anatolians spoke many languages including:Palaic, Hatti, Luwian and Hurrian, but the people as you know mainly wrote their writings in Neshumnili. The first people to use this system as the language of the royal chancery were Hatti Itamar Singer makes it clear that the Hittites adopted the language of the Hatti .(6) Steiner wrote that, " In the complex linguistic situation of Central Anatolia, in the 2nd Millennium B.C. with at least three, but probably more different languages being spoken within the same area there must have been the need for a language of communication or lingua franca [i.e., Neshumnili), whenever commercial transactions or political enterprises were undertaken on a larger scale" .(7)
•The Hatti language which provided the Hittites with many of the terms Indo-Aryan nationalists use to claim and Aryan origin for the Indus civilization is closely related to African languages including Egyptians. For example:Big, mighty, powerful protect, help upper
- Hattic ur $uh tufa
Egyptian wr swh tp
Malinke fara solo dya, tu ‘raising’
Head stretch (out) prosper to pour
Hattic tu put falfalat duq
Egyptian tup pd
Malinke tu ‘strike head’ pe, bemba fin’ya du
Eye hand Place King, term of respect
Hattic b’la ka -ka Kaati Malinke n’ye teke -ka ka, kuntigi ‘headman’
Good hypothesis generation suggest that given the fact that the Malinke-Bambara and Hatti languages share cognate terms, Sumerian terms may also relate to Hatti terms since they were also Kushites. Below we compare a few Hatti, Sumerian and Malinke Bambara terms:
- Mother father lord,ruler build, to set up
Hattic na-a ša tex
Malinke na baba sa te
Sumerian na ‘she’ aba tu ‘to create’
To pour child,son up, to raise strength,powerful land
Hatti dug pin,pinu tufa ur -ka
Malinke du den dya, tu fara -ka
Sumerian dub peš dul usu ki
In summary, the Hattic speaking people were members of the Kushite tribe called Tehenu. They were probably called Hati ( pl. Hatiu), by the Egyptians.
The language of the Hittites was more than likely a lingua franca, with Hattic, at its base. In Western Anatolia many languages were spoken including Hattic, Palaic, Luwian and Hurrian used Nesa as a lingua franca. For example, the king of Arzawa, asked the Egyptian in the Amarna Letters, to write them back in Nesumnili rather than Egyptian .(8)
Steiner notes that “In the complex linguistic situation of Central Anatolia in the 2nd Millennium B.C., with at least three, but probably more different languages being spoken within the same area there must have been the need for a language of communication or lingua franca whenever commercial transaction or political enterprises were undertaken on a larger scale” .(9)
This led Steiner to conclude that “moreover the structure of Hittite easily allowed one to integrate not only proper names, but also nouns of other languages into the morphological system. Indeed, it is a well known fact the vocabulary of Hittite is strongly interspersed with lexemes from other languages, which is a phenomenon typical of a “lingua franca” .(10)
Footnotes
1. Itamar Singer, Hittites and Hattians in Anatolia at the beginning of the Second Millennium B.C., Journal of Indo-European Studies, 9 (1-2) (1981), pp.119-149.
2 Gerd Steiner, The role of the Hittites in ancient Anatolia, Journal of Indo-European Studies, 9 (1-2) (1981), 119-149.
3 El Mosallamy,A.H.S. Libyco-Berber relations with ancient Egypt:The Tehenu in Egyptian records. In (pp.51-68) 1986, p.55; and L. Borchardt, Das Grabdenkmal des Konigs Sahure. Vol. II, Table 1.
4 Steiner, p.160.
5 I.M. Diakonoff and P.L. Kohl, Early Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
6. Itamar Singer, Hittites and Hattians in Anatolia at the Beginning of the Second Millennium BC,Journal of Indo-European Studies, 9 (1-2) (pp.119-149).
7 Ibid., p.162.
8 Ibid., p.161.
9 Ibid., p.162
10 Ibid., p.165.
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