Multilinguales Handwörterbuch des Hethitischen / A Concise Multilingual Hittite Dictionary Hititçe / Çok Dilli El Sözlü?ü. Hethitisches, englisches, deutsches und türkisches Wörterbuch / A Hittite, English, German and Turkish Dictionary / Hititçe

From as early as 1670 v. Chr, Hittite was written on clay tablets through the medium of the Babylonian cuneiform script; it thus represents the oldest attested Indo-European language. After more than a hundred years of continuous study, involving decipherment and the unravelling of textual context, the research process is now almost accomplished. Each excavation season in the Hittite homeland of Anatolia provides, in addition to the discovery of archaeological objects, further textual finds, enriching our knowledge of the vocabulary and subject matter covered. Although the former Hittite capital of Bogazköy-Hattusa was until recently the exclusive supplier of these clay tablets, different archives of greater importance are now being discovered in provincial cities. The specific self-dynamics in the research field pose a challenge for scholars, because the new material brings fresh information which needs to be evaluated in every respect. The rapid increase in basic evidence also necessitates changes in the format of manuals relating to history and grammar, and the upgrading of dictionaries to satisfy modern standards and take account of enhanced levels of knowledge. The "Hittite Dictionary" of J. Friedrich, from the year 1952, which once constituted a comprehensive reference tool, is now outdated in its semantic data and the completeness of its entries. The extended second edition of this Munich publication and the Chicago Hittite Dictionary (1980 ff.) are making comparatively slow progress; so far only the letters A-H and L-Š, respectively, have been dealt with. One of the disadvantages inherent in large-scale dictionaries is that they contain encyclopaedic references, rendering them unsuitable for everyday use as consultative works. On the other hand, some other dictionaries concern themselves only with the etymological aspect of the language. Consequently, a comprehensive dictionary, detailing the whole Hittite vocabulary, is a long-awaited development.