Luwian was split into many dialects, which were written in two different writing systems. One of these was the
Cuneiform Luwian which used the form of
Old Babylonian cuneiform that had been adapted for the
Hittite language. The other was
Hieroglyphic Luwian, which was written in a unique native hieroglyphic script. The differences between the dialects are minor, but they affect vocabulary, style, and grammar. The different orthographies of the two writing systems may also hide some differences. According to Hittitologist
Alwin Kloekhorst, Hieroglyphic Luwian may also be known as Empire Luwian or Iron Age Luwian, and is "closely related" to Cuneiform Luwian. Similarly, Alice Mouton and Ilya Yakubovich separate Luwian into two distinct varieties: cuneiform and hieroglyphic – the latter of a more prestigious and elite use.
Cuneiform Luwian Cuneiform Luwian (or Kizzuwatna Luwian) is the corpus of Luwian texts attested in the tablet archives of
Hattusa; it is essentially the same
cuneiform writing system used in
Hittite. In Laroche's
Catalog of Hittite Texts, the corpus of Hittite cuneiform texts with Luwian insertions runs from CTH 757–773, mostly comprising rituals. Cuneiform Luwian texts are written in several dialects, of which the most easily identifiable are
Kizzuwatna Luwian,
Ištanuwa Luwian, and Empire Luwian. The last dialect represents the
vernacular of
Hattusan scribes of the 14th–13th centuries BC and is mainly attested through
Glossenkeil words in Hittite texts. Compared to cuneiform Hittite,
logograms (signs with a set symbolic value) are rare. Instead, most writing is done with the syllabic characters, where a single symbol stands for a vowel, or a consonant-vowel pair (either VC or CV). A striking feature is the consistent use of 'full-writing' to indicate long vowels, even at the beginning of words. In this system a long vowel is indicated by writing it twice. For example,
īdi "he goes" is written
i-i-ti rather than
i-ti, and
ānda "in" is written
a-an-ta rather than
an-ta.
Hieroglyphic Luwian , Ankara , southern Iraq in the 1880s and now in the collection of the
British Museum Hieroglyphic Luwian (
luwili) is the corpus of Luwian texts written in a native script, known as
Anatolian hieroglyphs. It is recorded in official and royal
seals and a small number of monumental inscriptions. Once thought to be a variety of the
Hittite language, "Hieroglyphic Hittite" was formerly used to refer to the language of the same inscriptions, but this term is now obsolete. The dialect of Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions appears to be either Empire Luwian or its descendant, Iron Age Luwian. The earliest hieroglyphs appear on official and royal seals, dating from the early 2nd millennium BC, but only from the 14th century BC is the unequivocal evidence for a full-fledged writing system. Dutch Hittitologist
Willemijn Waal has argued that Luwian Hieroglyphic was already used for writing on wooden writing boards from the early second millennium BC onwards, but the argument has not been widely accepted. The first monumental inscriptions confirmed as Luwian date to the
Late Bronze Age, c. 14th to 13th centuries BC. After some two centuries of sparse material, the hieroglyphs resume in the Early
Iron Age, c. 10th to 8th centuries BC. In the early 7th century BC, the Luwian hieroglyphic script, by then aged more than 700 years, falls into oblivion. The first report of a monumental inscription dates to 1850, when an inhabitant of
Nevşehir reported the relief at
Fraktin. In 1870, antiquarian travellers in
Aleppo found another inscription built into the south wall of the
Al-Qaiqan Mosque. In 1884, Polish scholar discovered an inscription near
Köylütolu, in western
Turkey. The largest known inscription was excavated in 1946 in
Karatepe. Luwian hieroglyphic texts contain a limited number of lexical borrowings from
Hittite,
Akkadian, and
Northwest Semitic; the lexical borrowings from Greek are limited to proper nouns, although common nouns borrowed in the opposite direction do exist. A decipherment was presented by
Emmanuel Laroche in 1960, building on partial decipherments proposed since the 1930s. Corrections to the readings of certain signs as well as other clarifications were given by David Hawkins,
Anna Morpurgo Davies and Günther Neumann in 1973, generally referred to as "the new readings".
Script A more elaborate monumental style is distinguished from more abstract linear or cursive forms of the script. In general, relief inscriptions prefer monumental forms, and incised ones prefer the linear form, but the styles are in principle interchangeable. Texts of several lines are usually written in
boustrophedon style. Within a line, signs are usually written in vertical columns, but as in
Egyptian hieroglyphs, aesthetic considerations take precedence over correct reading order. The script consists of the order of 500 unique signs, some with multiple values; a given sign may function as a logogram, a determinative or a
syllabogram, or a combination thereof. The signs are numbered according to Laroche's sign list, with a prefix of 'L.' or '*'. Logograms are transcribed in Latin in capital letters. For example, *90, an image of a foot, is transcribed as PES when used logographically, and with its phonemic value
ti when used as a syllabogram. In the rare cases where the logogram cannot be transliterated into Latin, it is rendered through its approximate Hittite equivalent, recorded in Italic capitals, e.g. *216
ARHA. The most up-to-date sign list is that of Marazzi (1998). Hawkins, Morpurgo-Davies and Neumann corrected some previous errors about sign values, in particular emending the reading of symbols *376 and *377 from
i, ī to
zi, za. Some signs are used as reading aid, marking the beginning of a word, the end of a word, or identifying a sign as a logogram. These are not mandatory and are used inconsistently. == Phonology ==