Trojan Language - Luwian Theory

Luwian Theory

There was not enough evidence to fruitfully speculate upon the language of Troy until 1995, when a late Hittite seal was found in the excavations at Troy, probably dating from about 1275 BC. Not considered a locally-made object, this item from the Trojan "state chancellery" was inscribed in Luwian and to date provides the only archaeological evidence for any language at Troy at this period. It indicates that Luwian was known at Troy, which is not surprising since it was a lingua franca of the Hittite empire, of which Troy was probably in some form of dependency.

Another sphere of research concerns a handful of Trojan personal names mentioned in the Iliad. Among sixteen recorded names of Priam's relatives, at least nine (including Anchises and Aeneas) are not Greek and may be traced to "pre-Greek Asia Minor". On this basis Calvert Watkins in 1986 argued that the Trojans may have been Luwian-speaking. For instance, the name Priam is connected to the Luwian compound Pariya-muwa, which means "exceptionally courageous".

Additionally, the Alaksandu treaty describes Mira, Haballa, Seha and Wilusa (usually identified with Troy) as the lands of Arzawa, although this "has no historical or political basis", suggesting that it was the language that they had in common. Frank Starke of the University of Tübingen concludes that "the certainty is growing that Wilusa/Troy belonged to the greater Luwian-speaking community". Joachim Latacz also regards Luwian as the official language of Homeric Troy, but he finds it highly probable that another language was in daily use. Ilya Yakubovich provides a critical evaluation of the arguments by Watkins and Starke in his University of Chicago dissertation and concludes that the ethnicity of the Trojans remains completely unknown.

Several tablets found in Troad and inscribed in Minoan Linear A signs may be nothing else than imported objects, as there is no evidence of Minoan presence in Troad. Classification of these signs as a unique Trojan script (proposed by Nikolai Kazansky) is not accepted by other linguists.