The Ancient Hittites and their Language

The Hittites were an ancient people from Anatolia who spoke and Indo-European language. They wrote with a cuneiform script, they established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north central Anatolia from the 18th century BC. At its peak, the Hittite Empire covered most of modern Turkey and Syria.

The Hittites were a people who formed one of the first major civilizations of Bronze Age West Asia between 1600 – 1180 BC they manufactured advanced iron goods, ruled over their government through government officials with independent authority over various branches of government and worshipped storm gods. Hittite is the oldest Indo=European language known – older than Greek, Latin or Sanskrit.

As an Indo European language Hittite is related to modern day languages like English, the Hittite word for water is Watar. It is the Hittite language that I am now studying so from time to time I will post some of my Hittite translations. You can see the first two of my Hittite translations below.

Hittite sentence – Nu NINDA kinun

Literal English – And bread now I eat

English – I eat bread now

Hittite Sentence – Nu NINDA anissan edun

Literal English – And bread before I ate

English – I ate bread before

NOTE – The Hittite sentences get more complicated throughout my lessons so i will add those at a later date.

 

Bronze Age Writing of Crete

Introducing our PhD Student, Merten Wiltshire

 

About Ancient Scripts

Why do Ancient Scripts Die Out?

 

Ancient Crete

Major Happenings in Ancient Crete: A Timeline

 

Footnote: The “Olmec” and Maya civilizations did not “suddenly disappear!”

 

“Uncovering My Story: How I Found Meaning in Genealogy Research”

An interesting post for those interested in Geneology

 

Until 1788, the Tennessee River had a Maya name!

The Americas Revealed

Itza and Yucatec Maya words dot the landscape even today, in the region, where the Chickasaw People became a distinct tribe. Callimako means “House of the King” in Yucatec Maya. Chikimako (Chickamauga) means “House of the King” in Itza Maya.

Later this week, with virtual reality software, I will take you to the probable location in the late 500s AD, where people speaking a proto-Choctaw language lived side-by-side with refugees from Campeche, Chiapas and Tabasco. Their descendants spawned a hybrid people, who spread all over the interior of the Southeast and southern Ohio. The Chickamauga Creek mound and village site in the Nacoochee Valley was excavated by archaeologist Robert Wauchope in 1939.

In Ohio, anthropologists call them “The Fort Ancient Culture.” Until after the American Revolution Chickasaw Territory still extended to Paducah, Kentucky. Kentucky’s and Ohio’s Official state history texts mention the “Fort Ancient Culture,” but do not mention the…

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Your Stories: Ainu, My long journey from Greek and chocolate eggs to cuneiform enthusiasm

The VIEWS project

It started with Greek. One of my (many) children’s books about Ancient Greek introduced the Greek alphabet, and I decided to learn it. I didn’t understand all the letters – how can “ps” be one letter? – so I decided to use these extra letters for sounds my mother tongue Finnish has but Greek is missing. And then I continued to teach my poor school mates “Greek” so that we could write secrets messages no one else could read. Sadly, they weren’t as excited as I was.

Because learning Ancient Greek is available only in universities in Finland, I decided to take a course in Modern Greek when I was around 13 years old. A local Greek-Finnish friendship association didn’t have any age limit to participants, like many other places had. Greek was a lot harder than English and Swedish I was learning at school. Even though I kind-of-knew the…

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Tribes of Farmington Connecticut

Ever Widening Circle

Connecticut was home to several Native American tribes, including the Mohegan, Pequot, Nipmuc, and Eastern Woodland Indians. The Mohegan and Pequot were the two most powerful and largest tribes. They were both part of the Algonquian-speaking tribes, and their populations were estimated at 2,000 and 8,000 people respectively. The Nipmuc tribe was a smaller group that often merged with other tribes. The Eastern Woodland Indians were more nomadic and spread throughout much of the eastern United States. These tribes had a rich culture and believed in the power of nature and spirituality. Today, these tribes continue to preserve their culture and heritage through museums and cultural centers.

The indigenous people of North America inhabited the Eastern Woodlands, a cultural area that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean through to the eastern Great Plains and from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf of Mexico, covering the present-day Eastern United States and…

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An extraordinary gift by King Charles III to Indigenous Americans

The Americas Revealed

Life is stranger than fiction. Almost exactly ten years ago then HRH Charles Windsor, Prince of Wales, received a humorous letter from me, asking for his help in finding precious documents, which had been shipped to his ancestor, King George II, from Savannah, Georgia on July 6, 1735. Since then numerous delegations of professors from Ivy League colleges and the Smithsonian Institute had tried to find these documents, but to no avail. Most people in Georgia didn’t seem to know that the documents had ever existed.

HRH was especially amused by the fact that I seemed to be one of the few Americans, who were aware that the British Royal Family didn’t speak Elizabethan English. I started the letter by stating that if he ever got tired of the Royal business, he should become an architect and urban designer. Charles’ great loves are architecture, urban planning, real estate development, history…

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