# Anatolian languages: mother



## Whodunit

Hello,

As explained in another thread of mine, I'm trying to compare the Indo-European languages. However, it is hard to find some material on the Anatolian languages, so I have to consult our profound forum members here. 

Is there anybody who could translate the word _mother_ into (at best) Lycian? Hittite (or any other Anatolian language) would do as well, but I'm concentrating on Lycian.

Thanks in advance.


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## Chazzwozzer

I think the answer you are looking for is here. 



> xñna (a mother)


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## Whodunit

Chazzwozzer said:


> I think the answer you are looking for is here.


 
You're right. I forgot to mention that I had found a word for _mother_ in Lycian. 

However, I don't think I can take such a word (xñna) as an evidence for a comparison (or the relationship) between the Indo-European languages. Here's my take on a few others, and they all contain at least on _-m-_, and they are derived from the IE root *mātér:

English: Mother
Russian: мать (mat')
Latin: mater
Ancient Greek: μήτηρ (mḗtēr)
Latvian: māter
Albanian: ëmë
Irish: máthair
Armenian: մայր (mayr)
Sanskrit: मातृ (mātrí)
Tocharian: mācar
 
And Lycian should be _xñna_? I can't believe this.


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## modus.irrealis

For Hittite, you can find a lexicon at http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/cuneiform.languages/en_lexique_hittite.htm, which has _anna-_ for mother -- which also looks (on the surface) unrelated to the Proto-Indo-European word.



Whodunit said:


> Ancient Greek: μήτηρ (mḗtēr)


A bit off-topic, but you could take the Doric version μᾱτηρ, which is closer to the original (in Attic most original long ᾱ became η).


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## Whodunit

modus.irrealis said:


> For Hittite, you can find a lexicon at http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/cuneiform.languages/en_lexique_hittite.htm, which has _anna-_ for mother -- which also looks (on the surface) unrelated to the Proto-Indo-European word.


 
Hm, I'm not sure, but _anni_ looks more related to the IE (or PIE) root than _xñna_. Thanks for your reply. 



> A bit off-topic, but you could take the Doric version μᾱτηρ, which is closer to the original (in Attic most original long ᾱ became η).


 
Thanks. I'll take that one.


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## avok

modus.irrealis said:


> For Hittite, you can find a lexicon at http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/cuneiform.languages/en_lexique_hittite.htm, which has _anna-_ for mother -- which also looks (on the surface) unrelated to the Proto-Indo-European word.
> 
> 
> A bit off-topic, but you could take the Doric version μᾱτηρ, which is closer to the original (in Attic most original long ᾱ became η).


 
By the way, in Turkish which is not an Indo-European language, "ana" or "anne" means "mother"  ...a striking similarity to Hittite "anna" ( should I say, the language of our ancestors maybe  )


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## Whodunit

avok said:


> ( should I say, the language of our ancestors maybe  )


 
Hittite can't be the ancestor of Turkish, since Turkish is said to be an Altaic language and Hittite is claimed to be an Indo-European one. However, if we can find enough similarities between Turkish (and other Altaic language), we could group the Anatolian languages to them rather than to Indo-European.


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## avok

Whodunit said:


> Hittite can't be the ancestor of Turkish, since Turkish is said to be an Altaic language and Hittite is claimed to be an Indo-European one. However, if we can find enough similarities between Turkish (and other Altaic language), we could group the Anatolian languages to them rather than to Indo-European.


 
I know that Hittite cant be the ancestor of turkish !!! I already mentioned that turkish is not Indo- European, I am not that ignorant 
I said that Hittites (as a people) must be the ancestors of the local people in Turkey since Anatolia is our homeland. We, Turks, dont speak an Indo European language but Anatolia had been a shelter to the Indo European tribes for thousand of years...those peoples just did not disappear but integrated into the local peoples ( who now speak an Altaic language.)


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## barbiegood

Funny enough, Hungarian, which not Indo-Europen language, but a Uralic language and MAYBE carries some realtion with Altaic languages says

"anya" for mother

and i remember learning about that etimologically it has nothing to do with any of the Indo-European mother versions.

Father is also an "a" word, we say "apa"


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## Whodunit

Hello Barbiegood,

The Altaic language family is not very certain, so it could be that Hungarian (actually being an Uralic language) is a descendant of the Altaic languages. There's also the hypothesis that the Uralic and Altaic belonged together. See Ural-Altaic languages.

However, if _anna_ was the Hittite word for _mother_, I don't think that it was an IE descendant. It could be that _anna_ is derived from a word like *_mana_, which later became *_nana_ (due to assimlation) where the initial _n-_ was later dropped.

Another hypothesis I could propose is based on the derivatives of the IE *_plāt_ "flat" > VulLat *_plattus_ (AGr _πλᾱτύς_) > MLat _plānus_ > It. _piano _(cf. _piatto_). It could be possible that in some IE language, the consonant shift _t(t)>n_ has taken place, but I can't find any evidence for this. According to this, IE *_māter_ might have developed to Proto-Hittite (?) *_matta>_*_mana_, from which the _m-_ was later dropped. See Serbo-Croation _nena_ "mother", Sanskrit _nona_ "mother", Persian _nana_ "mother", Greek _ναννα _(?) "aunt", English _nun_ and _nanny_, German _Nonne_ "nun" ...

Anyway, thanks for all the contributions so far.


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## sound shift

I know very little about extinct Anatolian languages, but I have just read the claim that Lycian borrowed a lot of vocabulary from non - Indo-European languages. Could this be the case with _xñna_?


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## Whodunit

sound shift said:


> Could this be the case with _xñna_?


 
Maybe, but from which language family could the word _xñna_ be derived then? It seems almost unpronounceable to me.


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## modus.irrealis

About Lycian, I came across an article (it's here if you can access it) and basically it suggests that  in Lycian the word _ẽni _means "mother" and _xñna_ means "grandmother" -- and it mentions that these resemble Hittite _annaš _and _hannaš_, which have those meanings. Interestingly enough, the article basically argues that earlier scholars did not realize that the Lycians had a more matriarchal society (as described by Herodotus) and interpreted what were family terms as referring to male relatives instead of female relatives .

Also, there's a Lycian lexicon here, that assigns the same meanings to the words. (That site is an overall good site for anything Indo-European too.)


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