Palaic language
Palaic is an extinct
Indo-European language, attested in
cuneiform tablets in
Bronze Age Hattusa. Its name in
Hittite is
palaumnili, or "of the people of
Pala"; Pala was probably to the northwest of the Hittite core area, so in the northwest of present mainland
Turkey. That region was overrun by the
Kaskas in the 15th century BC, and the language likely went out of daily use at that time.
The entire corpus of Palaic spans CTH 750-754 in Laroche's "catalog of Hittite texts"; in addition Hittite texts elsewhere cite passages in Palaic in reference to the god Zaparwa (
Hittite Ziparwa) - totaling 21 passages, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Of the pure Palaic texts, CTH 750 is an account of the festival of Zaparwa and CTH 752 is another ritual. In addition to Zaparwa, the Palaumnili-speakers worshipped a sky god Tiyaz (
Luwian Tiwaz).
Palaic is a fairly typical specimen of Indo-European. Old Hittite has the genitive singular suffix
-as as of circa 1600 BC (compare Proto-Indo-European
*-os); where
Cuneiform Luwian instead uses the
-ssa adjectival suffix. Palaic, on the northern border of both, like later
Hieroglyphic Luwian has both an
-as genitive and an
-asa adjectival suffix. Palaic also shows the same gender distinction as seen in Hittite, i.e. animate vs. inanimate; and has similar pronoun forms. Therefore Palaic is thought to belong to the
Anatolian languages, although whether as a sister language to Old Hittite or Cuneiform Luwian is unknown.
*
Catalog of Hittite Texts: TEXTS IN OTHER LANGUAGES*
Genitive Case and Possessive Adjective in Anatolian by Craig Melchert
*
Palaic language, Encyclopaedia Britannica
