Indo-Europeans in the Mediterranean Area

Summary

Forrer's article begins by examining the deep interest of Louis de La Vallée Poussin in the Indo-European question and asks at what date people speaking Indo-European languages appear in the Mediterranean. The author reviews Dr. Forrer's claim that the Luvians, a people of Asia Minor, spoke an Indo‑European language and migrated before the fourth millennium BC. He summarises Forrer's view that Luvian speech dominated south‑western Asia Minor while Proto‑Hattic and Proto‑Hittite dialects were spoken elsewhere. Archaeological evidence linking Luvian speech with pottery from Troy and Yortan, Cappadocian painted pottery from the Halys region and other finds is discussed to show a cultural continuum from the third millennium to the early second millennium. The article stresses that our picture is far from clear; the author weighs arguments about whether Luvian is older than Hittite and whether it should be considered a dialect rather than a distinct language. He also examines Dr. Gotze's attribution of the famous Indo‑European –ss‑ and –nt‑ suffixes to Luvian and points out that these suffixes appear widely across Greece and Asia Minor, suggesting a non‑Indo‑European origin. The author notes that names such as Labyrinth, Minos and Knossos are non‑Indo‑European and argues that deities like Sanda, Tarhunt and Tarku are probably not Luvian but belong to native non‑Indo‑European cults. Throughout the article he emphasises the difficulty of separating Proto‑Hattic, Luvian and Hittite influences because the languages and cultures interacted for centuries. The article ends by arguing that, while traces of Indo‑European suffixes exist, the evidence for an early Indo‑European presence in the Mediterranean rests on uncertain linguistic and archaeological grounds and must be balanced against the continuity of local non‑Indo‑European cultures. The author concludes that the study of Indo‑European penetration into the Mediterranean should consider both linguistic data and material culture and avoid simplistic assumptions about migrations. He thus invites further research into the complex interplay between Indo‑European and native peoples in Asia Minor.