Archaeologists recently discovered a previously unknown ancient language on ancient stone tablets during excavations in Turkey.
According to Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, a public research university in Germany, the lost language belongs to the Indo-European language family, which includes hundreds of related languages, all of which are monolithic. They are believed to share a prehistoric ancestor.
Just under half of the world’s population speaks Indo-European languages. These languages are native to much of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. The most widely spoken Indo-European languages include English, Hindi, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, German, Punjabi, and Bengali.
The latest recognized Indo-European language family was discovered thanks to ritual texts inscribed on stone tablets in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Boğazköy Hattuša, in northern Turkey’s Çorum province. Boğazköy-Hattusa was once the capital of the Hittite Empire, one of the great powers of the Near East, during the Late Bronze Age, from approximately 1650 BC to 1200 BC.
Excavations have been carried out at Boğazköy Hattusa for more than a century under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI).
According to the Julius Maximilian University of Wurzburg, around 30,000 clay tablets have been discovered at the site so far, revealing various aspects of Hittite life. The clay tablets are inscribed in cuneiform, which is generally considered to be the oldest known writing system. Cuneiform is a script developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago and used to write several languages of the ancient Near East.
Most of the inscriptions discovered at Boğazköy Hattusa record the extinct Hittite language, the oldest attested language of the Indo-European family. Other languages such as Luwian and Para are also available on this site.
However, excavations carried out this year led by Professor Andreas Schachner of the DAI Istanbul Faculty surprisingly discovered readings of a previously unknown extinct language. This language was hidden in cuneiform tablets containing ritual texts written in Hittite. Hittite ritual texts refer to the Lost Tongue as the language of the land of Kalashma, an area that probably corresponds to the towns of Bor or Gerede in today’s northern Turkey.
“The Hittites had a unique interest in recording their rituals in foreign languages,” Daniel Schwemer, head of the Ancient Near Eastern Studies Department at the Julius Maximilian University of Wurzburg, said in a press release.
Recently discovered languages are still largely incomprehensible. However, according to the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Anatolian language expert Professor Elisabeth Rieken of Philipps University in Marburg, Germany, has confirmed that Karasm belongs to the Indo-European language family.
Earlier this year, researchers announced they had successfully deciphered an ancient script that had been incomprehensible for decades.
In a study published in a journal Literature Society Papersa team of scientists describes how they partially deciphered the “unknown” Kushan script, an ancient writing system once used in parts of Central Asia from around 200 BC to around 700 AD
newsweek Mr. Schachner was contacted for comment via email.