Palaic language
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ToursExplore Lably’s 3D toursIts name in Hittite is palaumnili, or "of the people of Pala"; Pala was probably to the northwest of the Hittite core area, so in the northwest of present mainland Turkey. The region was overrun by the Kaskians in the 15th century BC, and the language likely went out of daily use at that time.
Phonology
Melchert reconstructs the following phonemic inventory for Palaic: However, Melchert claims that, instead of pharyngeals, "a pair of velar fricatives is equally possible".
Consonants
Vowels
The phonemic status of /e/ and /eː/ is uncertain.
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Morphology
In terms of its morphology, Palaic is a fairly typical specimen of Indo-European. Palaic shared common innovations with Luwian not present in Old Hittite, suggesting a prior Luwian-Palaic linguistic complex. It has been characterized as "more conservative than Hittite" and heavily influenced by the Hattic language, though caution is prescribed for the latter assertion given the paucity of available materials.
Noun
Palaic shows the same gender distinction as seen in Hittite, i.e. animate vs. inanimate. It distinguishes two numbers, singular and plural, and at least six cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, and locative.
Old Hittite has the genitive singular suffix -aš circa 1600 BC (compare Proto-Indo-European *-os); where Cuneiform Luwian instead uses the -ašša/i- adjectival suffix. Palaic, on the northern border of both, like later Hieroglyphic Luwian has both an -aš genitive and an -aša- adjectival suffix.
Palaic also has similar pronoun forms to Old Hittite.
Verb
The verb in Palaic is inflected for number (singular and plural), person, tense (present and preterite), and mood (indicative and imperative). It also has two voices, active and medio-passive.
Palaic is considered to have had a "high number of attestations of the suffix -ina," all of which were transitive.