Hittite

Hittite is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European family, spoken in central Anatolia during the Bronze Age and the official language of the Hittite Empire centered on the capital Hattusa. It is the earliest attested Indo-European language, recorded from roughly 1650 to 1200 BC in a cuneiform script adapted from Akkadian, with a predominantly syllabic spelling system that makes reconstructing its exact sounds difficult in places. More than 30,000 clay tablets recovered from the royal archives at Hattusa preserve an unusually wide range of text types, including law codes, treaties, royal annals and religious rituals, giving scholars an exceptionally full picture of a Bronze Age society. Modern decipherment began in the early twentieth century once the language was recognized as Indo-European, and by the late Bronze Age Hittite itself was losing ground within its own empire to its close relative Luwian.