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Hurro-Urartian
Hurro-Urartian is an extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, comprising only two known languages: Hurrian and Urartian. Origins It is often assumed that the Hurro-Urartian languages, or a pre-split Proto-Hurro-Urartian language, were originally spoken by people of the Kura-Araxes culture which existed in Eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, northwestern Iran and northern Levant from the late 5th millennium BC to late 3rd millennium BC. External classification While the genetic relation between Hurrian and Urartian is undisputed, the wider connections of Hurro-Urartian to other language families are controversial. After the decipherment of Hurrian and Urartian inscriptions and documents in the 19th and early 20th century, Hurrian and Urartian were soon recognized as not related to the Semitic or later arriving Indo-European languages, nor to language isolates of the region such as Sumerian language, Elamite language and Hattian language. At present, the consensus view of ...
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Urartian Language
Urartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu (''Biaini'' or ''Biainili'' in Urartian), which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, near the site of the modern town of Van in the Armenian highlands, now in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. Its past prevalence is unknown. While some believe it was probably dominant around Lake Van and in the areas along the upper Zab valley, others believe it was spoken by a relatively small population who comprised a ruling class. First attested in the 9th century BCE, Urartian ceased to be written after the fall of the Urartian state in 585 BCE and presumably became extinct due to the fall of Urartu. It must have had long contact with, and been gradually totally replaced by, an early form of Armenian, although it is only in the 5th century CE that the first written examples of Armenian appear. Classification Urartian is ...
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Urartian Tablet03
Urartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu (''Biaini'' or ''Biainili'' in Urartian), which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, near the site of the modern town of Van in the Armenian highlands, now in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. Its past prevalence is unknown. While some believe it was probably dominant around Lake Van and in the areas along the upper Zab valley, others believe it was spoken by a relatively small population who comprised a ruling class. First attested in the 9th century BCE, Urartian ceased to be written after the fall of the Urartian state in 585 BCE and presumably became extinct due to the fall of Urartu. It must have had long contact with, and been gradually totally replaced by, an early form of Armenian, although it is only in the 5th century CE that the first written examples of Armenian appear. Classification Urartian is a ...
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Hurrian Tablet AO12016 Mp3h8901
The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria, upper Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia. The Hurrians were first documented in the city of Urkesh, where they built their first kingdom. Their largest and most influential Hurrian kingdom was Mitanni. The population of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia included a large population of Hurrians, and there is significant Hurrian influence in Hittite mythology. By the Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples. The state of Urartu later covered some of the same area. A related people to the Hurrians are the Urarteans. History Early Bronze Age The Khabur River valley became the heart of the Hurrian lands for a millennium. The first known Hurrian kingdom emerged around the city of Urkesh (modern Tell Mozan) during the third millennium BC. There is e ...
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Hurrian Language
Hurrian is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language spoken by the Hurrians (Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in modern-day Syria. Classification Hurrian is closely related to Urartian, the language of the ancient kingdom of Urartu. Together they constitute the Hurro-Urartian language family. The external connections of the Hurro-Urartian languages are disputed. There exist various proposals for a genetic relationship to other language families (e.g. the Northeast Caucasian languages, Indo-European languages, or Kartvelian languages that are spoken in Georgia). It has also been speculated that it is related to " Sino-Caucasian". However, none of these proposals are generally accepted. History The earliest Hurrian text fragments consist of lists of names and places from the e ...
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Alarodian Languages
The Alarodian languages are a proposed language family that encompasses the Northeast Caucasian (Nakh–Dagestanian) languages and the extinct Hurro-Urartian languages. History The term Alarodian is derived from Greek ''Ἀλαρόδιοι'' (''Alarodioi''), the name of an ethnic group mentioned by Herodotus that has often been equated with the people of the kingdom of Urartu, although this equation is considered doubtful by modern scholars. A leading Urartologist, Paul Zimansky, rejects a connection between the Urartians and the Alarodians. Almost nothing is known about the Alarodians except that they "were armed like the Colchians and Saspeires," according to Herodotus. The Colchians and Saspeires are generally associated with the Kartvelians and/or Scythians, neither of whom spoke a Hurro-Urartian or Northeast Caucasian language. Historically, the term "Alarodian languages" was employed for several language family proposals of various size. Sayce (1880) employed the ...
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Northeastern Caucasian Languages
The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or Vainakh-Daghestani, or sometimes Caspian languages (from the Caspian Sea, in contrast to ''Pontic languages'' for the Northwest Caucasian languages), is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as in Georgia and diaspora populations in Western Europe and the Middle East. According to Glottolog, there are currently 36 Nakh-Dagestanian languages. Name of the family Several names have been in use for this family. The most common term, ''Northeast Caucasian'', contrasts the three established families of the Caucasian languages: ''Northeast Caucasian'', '' Northwest Caucasian'' (Abkhaz–Adyghean) and ''South Caucasian'' ( Kartvelian). This may be shortened to ''East Caucasian''. The term ''Nakh(o)-Dagestanian'' can be taken to reflect a primary division of the family into Nakh and Dagestanian branches, a view which ...
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Kassite Language
Kassite (also Cassite) was a language spoken by the Kassites in Mesopotamia from approximately the 18th to the 7th century BC. From the 16th to 12th centuries BC, kings of Kassite origin ruled in Babylon until they were overthrown by the Elamites. As only a few dozen words are known, none of which have been demonstrably linked to any living or dead language family, Kassite is considered an unclassified language at present, possibly an isolate or belonging to the Hurro-Urartian languages. Vocabulary Based on the patchy distribution of extant cuneiform texts, the Semitic Akkadian language of the native Babylonians was mostly used for economic transactions during the Kassite period, with Sumerian used for monumental inscriptions. Traces of the Kassite language are few: * a Kassite-Babylonian vocabulary with 48 entries, listing bilingual equivalents of god names, common nouns, verbs, and adjective(s), such as ''dakaš'' "star", ''hašmar'' "falcon", ''iašu'' "country", ''j ...
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Sergei Starostin
Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguistics, historical linguist and philology, philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothetical proto-languages, including his work on the controversial Altaic languages, Altaic theory, the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian languages, Dené–Caucasian hypothesis, and the proposal of a Borean languages, Borean language of still earlier date. None of his proposed Macrofamily, macrofamilies have seen wide-scale acceptance in the linguistic community (and are mostly seen as implausible). Theories In 1986, Starostin and Igor M. Diakonoff suggested that the Hurro-Urartian languages belong to the Northeast Caucasian languages, Northeast Caucasian language family. Starostin also helped with reconstructions Proto-Kiranti, Tibeto-Burman, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, Yeniseian languages, Proto-Yeniseian, North Caucasian languages, Proto-North-Caucasian, and Proto-Altaic lan ...
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Subartu
The land of Subartu (, Assyrian: '' mât Šubarri'') or Subar (, ) is mentioned in Bronze Age literature. The name also appears as ''Subari'' in the Amarna letters, and, in the form ''Šbr'', in Ugarit. Subartu was apparently a kingdom in Upper Mesopotamia, at the upper Tigris and later it referred to a region of Mesopotamia. Most scholars suggest that ''Subartu'' is an early name for people of upper Mesopotamia proper on the Tigris and westward, although there are various other theories placing it sometimes a little farther to the east and/or north. Its precise location has not been identified. From the point of view of the Akkadian Empire, Subartu marked the northern geographical horizon, just as Amurru, Elam and Sumer marked "west", "east" and "south", respectively, functioning as a term to mean 'north'. History The earliest references to the "four-quarters" by the kings of Akkad name Subartu as one of these quarters around Akkad, along with Martu, Elam, and Sumer. Sub ...
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Igor Diakonoff
Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff (occasionally spelled Diakonov, ; 12 January 1915 – 2 May 1999) was a Russian historian, linguist, and translator and a renowned expert on the Ancient Near East and its languages. His brothers were also distinguished historians. Life and career Diakonoff was brought up in Norway. He graduated from Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University) in 1938. In the same year he joined the staff of the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). In 1949, he published a comprehensive study of Assyria, followed in 1956 by a monograph on Media. Later on, he teamed up with the linguist Sergei Starostin to produce authoritative studies of the Caucasian, Afroasiatic, and Hurro-Urartian languages. Diakonoff was honored in 2003 with a festschrift volume published in his memory, edited by Lionel Bender, Gábor Takács, and David Appleyard. In addition to articles on Afro-Asiatic languages, it contains a five-page list of his p ...
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Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Turkish Straits to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the north. The eastern and southeastern limits have been expanded either to the entirety of Asiatic Turkey or to an imprecise line from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Alexandretta. Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and separates Anatolia from Thrace in Southeast Europe. During the Neolithic, Anatolia was an early centre for the development of farming after it originated in the adjacent Fertile Crescent. Beginning around 9,000 years ago, there was a major migration of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers into Neolithic Europe, Europe, with their descendants coming to dominate the continent a ...
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Lullubi
Lullubi, Lulubi (: ''Lu-lu-bi'', : ''Lu-lu-biki'' "Country of the Lullubi"), more commonly known as Lullu, were a group of Bronze Age tribes of Hurrian and Semitic languages, Semitic origin who existed and disappeared during the 3rd millennium BC, from a region known as ''Lulubum'', now the Sharazor plain of the Zagros Mountains of modern-day Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Iraq. Lullubi was a neighbour and sometimes ally with the Hurrian Simurrum, Simurrum kingdom and came into conflict with the Semitic Akkadian Empire and Assyria. Frayne (1990) identified their city ''Lulubuna'' or ''Luluban'' with the region's modern town of Halabja. Historical references Legends The early Sumerian legend "''Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird''", set in the reign of Enmerkar of Uruk, alludes to the "mountains of Lulubi" as being where the character of Lugalbanda encounters the gigantic ''Anzû'' bird while searching for the rest of Enmerkar's army ''en route'' to siege Aratta. Akkadian empire and Gutian ...
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