Annotation
Luwian, also known as Luvian, is a member of the Anatolian group of languages, which is variously regarded as either daughter or sister of the Indo-European language family. The Luwian language is attested through written texts recorded in approximately 1500-800 BC and recorded with the help of two writing systems: an adaptation of
Mesopotamian cuneiform and the Anatolian hieroglyphs. The extant
Luwian texts originated, in their majority, in Central and
Southeastern Anatolia, or in Northern Syria.
The interpretation of the Luwian language is an ongoing process, which goes hand in hand with the decipherment of Anatolian hieroglyphs.
While some Luwian texts are reasonably well understood, others continue to defy scholarly efforts and remain obscure. The goal of this class is to teach students how to read and navigate the field of
Luwian studies with the help of up-to-date reference tools. A particular emphasis will be made on the significant progress that the study of Luwian made in the last fifteen years. The implications of
Luwian philology for the history of Eastern Mediterranean in Late
Bronze and Early Iron Ages will also be addressed.
Ilya Yakubovich (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2008) is the author of the Sociolinguistics of the Luwian Language [Leiden: Brill, 2010], and an editor of Luwian Identities [Leiden: Brill, 2013, in collaboration with A.Mouton and I. Rutherford]. He is the principal investigator of the online project Annotated Corpus of Luwian texts, whose intermediate results are available for public use at web-corpora.net/LuwianCorpus/search.