Hieroglyphic Luwian.

• Author: Melchert, H. Craig
• Position: Book review

Hieroglyphic Luwian. By ANNICK PAYNE. Elementa Linguarum Orientis, vol. 3. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2004. Pp. xiv + 212. [euro]29.80 (paper).

The magisterial and epoch-making new edition of Hieroglyphic Luvian texts of the first millennium by David Hawkins has now led to two new introductions to the language, one of which is reviewed here. (1) The present work was explicitly designed to provide a compact and affordable primer suitable for self-instruction (p. ix), and for the most part it admirably achieves this goal. One outstanding merit is its remarkable combination of comprehensiveness and compactness. In 212 pages it offers an introduction, with a map showing the location of most of the texts, a grammatical sketch, twelve text samples including the hieroglyphic version(!) edited to serve as reading exercises, a complete sign list by number and by transliteration, a vocabulary that covers all the exercises, and select bibliography. The text layout is attractive and easy to read, and there are only a few mostly obvious typos. (2) The English prose is very good--the few unidiomatic usages do not affect comprehension. (3)

Our understanding of Hieroglyphic Luvian has not yet reached the stage where there is a consensus among specialists regarding all aspects of its grammar, much less matters of textual interpretation (see the admirably candid warning of the author herself in the introduction to the sample texts, p. 44). I cannot agree with Payne's choices on several points of grammar nor on a number of textual analyses, but this review is not the proper place to rehearse these differences. I confine myself here to those points that have serious implications for the language as a whole.

Two matters of phonology require comment. First, there can no longer be any doubt that the signs [ta.sub.4] and [ta.sub.5] also have values with i-vocalism (cf. p. 205 where these values are acknowledged, though still with an unjustified question mark). Second, the author cites and partially adopts (pp. 15-16) the new analysis (4) that in older texts spellings such as wa/i-mu-a are to be read as /a=wa=mu/, but then does not apply it consistently. If this view is adopted, then there probably are no instances of aphaeresis of a- (p. 16). Here a clear choice should have been made: adopt the new interpretation fully or retain the old one throughout, merely acknowledging the existence of the new alternative.

There is only one truly serious error in the...