Hittite cuneiform

Hittite cuneiform

Hittite cuneiform refers to the implementation of cuneiform script used in writing the Hittite language. The surviving corpus of Hittite texts is preserved in cuneiform on clay tablets dates to the 2nd millennium BC (roughly spanning the 17th to 12th centuries).

Hittite orthography was directly adapted from Old Assyrian cuneiform. The "HZL" of Rüster and Neu lists 375 cuneiform signs used in Hittite documents (11 of them only appearing in Hurrian and Hattic glosses), compared to some 600 signs in use in Old Assyrian. About half of the signs have syllabic values, the remaining are used as ideograms or logograms to represent the entire word -- much as the characters "$", "%" and "&" are used in contemporary English.

Cuneiform signs can be employed in three functions: syllabograms, Akkadograms or Sumerograms. Syllabograms are characters that represent a syllable. Akkadograms and Sumerograms are ideograms originally from the earlier Akkadian or Sumerian orthography respectively, but not intended to be pronounced as in the original language; Sumerograms are mostly ideograms and determiners. Conventionally,
*syllabograms are transcribed in italic lowercase
*Akkadograms in italic uppercase
*Sumerograms in uppercase.Thus, the sign GI


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