Who deciphered what (was Re: Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt)

[Robert Whiting]

On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> "Peter &/or Graham" <petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:

<snip>

> >No doubt someone will prove me wrong, but I believe Hittite was deciphered
> >at first by German speakers - so z was used as in German, which is a great
> >pain.   It = /ts/.

> OK, I'll prove you wrong :-)

> Hittite was deciphered by a Czech, Hrozny', the <z> in whose name
> is /z/.  The <z> derives from the conventions used for Akkadian
> cuneiform.  Akkadian was deciphered by Germans.

Germans like Henry Rawlinson and Edward Hincks?

Strictly speaking, Hittite was not deciphered at all.  The script
was already known.  It was Hrozny' who made the first steps in
interpreting the language and who suggested that it was IE, but
the decipherment phase of cuneiform had long been over.  The
adaptations of the script for the writing of Hittite had to be
worked out, but this is not the same thing as starting with an
unknown script.

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki