Talk:Hurrians

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Contents

[edit] copied from the Talk:Hurrian page.

Jorge Stolfi 14:49, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

They spoke an agglutinative language unrelated to neighboring Semitic or Indo-European languages but showing some affinity with other Subarean languages & Kiengi-Sumerian. Quite authoritative, considering all one has to build on is a handful of Hurrian names found on inscriptions at Nuzi, some lists of sacrifices and what else? http://www.lib.washington.edu/NearEast/hurrlang.html Is this built on Emmanuel Laroche, Glossaire de la Langue Hourrite? Or I.M. Diakonoff and S.A. Starostin, Hurro-Urartian as an Eastern Caucasian Language 1986?
The Encyclopedia of World History has this to say of Hurrians:

'The Hurrians had lived in Mesopotamia in small numbers from the late 3rd millennium, but the major Hurrian invasion of the region began around 1700. By 1500, they had penetrated into all of Mesopotamia, as well as Syria-Palestine and eastern Anatolia. There are indications that they had been influenced by Aryans somewhere outside the Near East. The Hurrians worshipped gods later associated with the Iranians and Indians (such as Mithra and Varuna) (See Economy, Technology, Society, and Culture)—the names of some Hurrian rulers and certain technical expressions in Hurrian texts (particularly in connection with the chariot) are Indo-European. The Hurrians adopted Mesopotamian religion and culture, utilizing Babylonian as an administrative language and cuneiform script to write the Hurrian language. Despite the large number of surviving texts, the Hurrian language remains undeciphered.' Wetman 01:29, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I don't know where your source got that from, but there are many thousands of texts, most of them very brief written in Hurrian cuneiform inscriptions both at Hurrian sites and, famously, in the Amarna archive. The longest Hurrian document in fact comes precisely from Amarna and is the basis for most of the generalizations that people make about the structure of the language. There are at least two large grammars of the language, the best by Wegner. There are many individual words and constructions that remain opaque, to be sure, but to say that it remains undeciphered is simply false. (See my comments below about Starostin and Diakonoff's work, which is not widely respected despite being the only extensive work on the question.) Trwier 16:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Wetman! The info above pertains to the "Hurrian" kingdom of Mitanni who were at first thought to have been identical with the Hurrians. The real question is where the conviction that there was a substantial Hurrian common population in Mittani came from (e.g. why do we assume Herodotus was talking about Hurrians?). I have not found this source yet and so I cannot criticize it as invalid. (But just because I do not know about the details of the connection it does not mean that it cannot exist). I will put your reference into the article but your conviction about "a handful" is misleading (though I suppose it depends upon which font size you mean :-P ). Zestauferov 02:21, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Zestauferov! all I know is what I read. It's always risky to build over-arching linguistic connections about languages that haven't been deciphered. Hurrian and Mitanni, Hittite, Urartu etc. all do need good clear reports on the current status of mainstream professional opinion, with some links pointing to further information. The ancient Near East is a field in flux. Wikipedia needs to offer a core of dependable information, with an idea of how it has been arrived at. Then there could be a final section of broad-ranging hypotheses, also mentioning what they are based on. Wetman 02:41, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Well there is a large Hurrian-Hittite bilingual text K Bo XXXII which has been used to expand upon the ideas of Diakonoff and is the reason behind the Uralaltaic speculations by the likes of Neu. I am not very familiar with where this sort of up-to-date info might be available on the net but will do my best to find out.Zestauferov 02:50, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This entry needs an introductory section that gives the current mainstream description of Hurrians. That could be followed by some of this imaginative speculation, if any of it can be attributed to a printed or on-line source. Trying to edit the existing text, which is the product of Zestauferov's enthusiasms is not feasible. Wetman 20:10, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

For anyone who does not know already, Wetman's insecurity does not allow him to believe in editing anything I have contributed but is on a campaign to have anything contanimated by me re-written entirely. Zestauferov 02:20, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

(Pooh! perfect nonsense.) Wetman 10:46, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Oh then in that case please list the articles I have made any major contributions to which you think do not need re-writing?Zestauferov 12:38, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC) _____

Hesiod's theogony seems to owe significant episodes to Hurrian paragons. Say this in the mirror three times with jelly beans in your mouth. This is self-important owlish jargon. Can some information be transmitted here, or should we drop this sentence? Wetman 10:46, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Now I've seen everything. I think I am getting a clear picture of the kind of person you are now, forgive me please but if I'm right I can't believe someone like you has the gall to approach criticizing any of my contributions. The contributer means the genealogies of the gods given by Hesiod seems to have significant parralels in Hurrian mythology. Zestauferov 12:38, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

"Significant"— but not identifiable apparently. Hesiod's Theogony we know. But what's this Hurrian version? There is no Hurrian literature or surviving mythology. Some names of gods, are there?... and what is this "Tikunani Prism" so authoritatively being referred to here? A misprint? A paperweight? Google reveals no genuine usages. Wetman 02:10, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

(( End of contents from old Talk:Hurrian page. Jorge Stolfi 14:49, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC) ))

Jorge please edit back in the Tikunani reference when you have time. Thanks Zestauferov 04:47, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Jeorge, why don't you want to mention the Alarodian languages? Zestauferov 03:11, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Levzur what are Khurits?Zestauferov 01:49, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Avestan

did Hurrians actually use the Avestan script - most of the edits by the anonymous user who put this in have been vandalism but I don't know enough about this subject to revert. Trödel|talk 16:46, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What evidence?

I just cut this sentence out of the article:

Ironically, there is much more evidence for the Hurrian origin of Biblical Hebrew culture (but not the Hebrew language) which is otherwise at odds with its linguistically related Canaanite surroundings.

"Much more evidence"? Like what? Let's see the quality of that evidence here on the discussion page, if there really is any, and then if it holds up, we can consider reintroducing that claim into the text. Codex Sinaiticus 05:15, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Article restructured

  • The article has now been restructured with clear headlines separating Language, History, Culture, and the Indo-Aryan connection.
    • Since Mitanni is a separate Wiki-article, information specific for Mitanni should better be printed there.
      • All about the Indo-Aryans and their connection with the Hurrians is disputed and rather speculative. Since the article Hurrians is not about Indo-Aryan culture or languages this section should be kept short. It would be better to move or organize another entry for the Indo-Aryan issue.
        • I do miss some images in the article!

--JFK 18:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Earlier scholars?

It says: "This convinced earlier scholars the elite in the Hurrian society was an Indo-Aryan ethnic group who invaded the region with their horses and chariots, like the Vedic Indians." This implies that contemporary scholars disagree but then, what is the view of contemporary scholars? 193.149.191.1 20 April 2006

The contemporary (post 1950) view is the early Hurrians received cultural influences from Indo-Iranian people. In the same manner the Hurrians influenced the Hittite culture some centuries later. In the early 20th century school of archaeology cultural changes always meant conquest by a superior people. Modern archaeology does not need conquest to explain cultural changes. --JFK 14:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I can se why invasion need not be the only source of cultural changes but surely some form of Indo-Aryan immigration is needed since none of the neigbours seem to be Indo-Aryans? Or is long distance trade the prime suspect? Anyway it would be a good idea to mention the modern scholarly view along with the view of the earlier scholars already listed in the article. 193.149.191.1 06:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Native Indo-European speaking population?

It says: "This was around the same time that an aristocracy speaking Urartian, similar to old Hurrian, seems to have first imposed itself on the native Indo-European speaking population around Lake Van, and formed the Kingdom of Urartu." Was the "native" (i.e. pre-Hurrian) population really Indo-European speaking? What is the source for this – other than Armenian nationalistic sentiments? I believe that according to one theory it wasn't until the end of (or even after) Urartu that Indo-Europeans (Phrygians?) penetrated this area. 193.149.191.1 20 April 2006

I agree, this statement is unsourced. It was kept from the earlier article. I suggest a move to the last section "Connections and origin theories". --JFK 14:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


It's not something that's unknowable or absurd -- personal and place names could provide the evidence -- but it really needs a citation. -Ben 14:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I concur with JFK, but don't move the whole sentence, just the word "Indo-European" needs to be moved... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hurrians and Kurds

"Many researchers believe that the Hurrians (Khurrites) are the ancestors of the modern Kurds, and that their language was influence by the immigrating Mede tribes.[citation needed] Recent genetic analyses of the Kurdish people support these studies" These lines are in need of strong resources. The referred resource does not support these thesis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hattusili (talk • contribs)

There ist no scietifical proof for that claim. The only source goes to an single website which is hosted by a private person on the website of his dsl-provider. And Mehrdad Izady is not a known objective historian. --LACongress 07:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kelashin (talk • contribs)

The first source shows that there are researchers believing that the Hurrians (Khurrites) are the ancestors of the modern Kurds but instead of saying "many researchers" their names must be given.(at least the most important ones.) But non of the sources directly refer to a genetic study about this issue so the second sentence must be deleted if there are no other strong sources.--Hattusili 13:08, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

The first source shows the mainstream view of the origins of Kurds as it is now proved that Kurds are not descendant of Medes [1]. You see here that even Iraqi government accepts this view [2]. On the genetic connection of Kurds and their Hurrian ancestores there is already two verifiable evidences that clearly connect Kurds with Hurrians. and I see nothing wrong with that. In addition to this, I will try to provide more sources and more information on that matter. Kelashin 13:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I have no opposition about Kurdish-Hurrian connection but i think the sources about genetic relation are not reliable. It would be better if we can find more clear sources. --Hattusili 15:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyhow, the above belongs to section 7: Connections and origin theories. The article Hurrians is about the historical Hurrian people, not their possible descendants. The issue of Kurdish origins are extensively dealt with in the articles Kurdish people and History of the Kurds.--JFK 15:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who can actually read Hurrian texts and who's studied their grammar, I can attest that any professional linguist or Near Eastern scholar would consider the connection to the Kurdish language as essentially crackpottery. The Kurds speak an Indo-Aryan language related, distantly, to Persian and Sanskrit. The Iranian peoples were not present in Anatolia until much, much later than the period in question, not until perhaps the time of the Persian empire. (It's difficult to know for sure.) At any rate, Hurrian and Urartean are not even Indo-European languages, and no scholar has made any very convincing case that they are related to any other known language. The one partial exception is that by Starostin and Diakonof, who claimed based on lexical evidence and a number of posited sound-laws that Hurrian and Urartian are related to the North-East Caucasian languages now spoken in Daghestan. This is not entirely implausible; the proto-homeland according to some scholars was at that time south of the Caucasus, not north where they are today. However, the concensus of the Northeast Caucasian specialists (as, e.g., represented in an article by Johanna Nichols in a festschrift to Howard Aronson) is that Diakonof's work is shoddy and does abide by the strictures of the comparative method that linguists use to determine genetic relatedness of languages. This is separate from the question of BIOLOGICAL relatedness, however. I am not an expert in this field, so I can only speak about the linguistic evidence, and all of that evidence suggests that the Hurrians were not originally even remotely near Indo-European cultures despite some of the evidence that the Mitanni state may have had an IE elite ruling class. Trwier 16:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] map of the zone

A map of the zone where these peoples lived would be really nice for us geography-ignorant =) --euyyn 23:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] about Hurrian Language

Hurrian language is language of Northeastcaucasian Folks (Waynach: Chechens, Ingushs, Batsbijs and Daghestanians: Avars, Darginians, Lezginians, Tabasarans, Aguls, Tsahurs). Hurrian language has NO COMMON with Georgian (Kartvelian) and Kurd Languages ( Diakonov I.M., Starostin S.A.)--81.24.84.11 17:56, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] about ergativity of Kurd language

" Mani researchers who consider Hurrian language as proto-Kurdish regard the ergativity of the Kurdish language as one of the important syntactical connections between the two languages". Ergativity of Kurd language< Alarodian substratum. And Pashto (with Tadjiks Mountain dialekts) has partly ergativity but Kurd, Pashto and Mountain Dialekts of Tadjik (Pamirian-Tadjik) languages are Indoeuropean (!), Nostratic. Who is author of "protokurdic" Hurrian language? This idea is idea of no established and incompetend linguists. What account of Hurrian language was iranian type as "yek, du, se, chahar, pyandj, shesh..." (Farsi)? Indoeuropean languages are YOUNG and good wellcnown languages with invariable "eins, zwei, drei.., odin, dva, tri..." "Protokurdic" language for the Kurdian is Protoiranian (with Alarodian substratum as in Osset Iranian language)< Indoeuropean< Nostratic.--Awarenstuermer 10:39, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What do their eyes look like ??

...seems to me that in this day and age of all aspects of islam being a big important subject, and me having been looking around at least 2 times on the web, and having found nothing at all about this, well, why not have something about this very important subect in wikipedia ? Is this not one of the most important modern areas of knowledge concerning this group of people ? According to Prof Roderick Davidson of George Washington Univ. when one [whom I guess must also be a good moslem, though having died for the cause seems to be prima facie adequate in most if not all cases] gets to heaven after having died in battle one is served, and one's servants are young maidens with Hurri Eyes. I may be incorrect here, but my guess is that this is the place for me to be asking the above question.John5Russell3Finley 20:12, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

You might try looking at Houri. Also you may want to find out, the prof. make this up, or is he quoting some authoritative text? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:05, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanx, clearly I have the spelling wrong. Prof was tops, and not a chance I want anybody blaming him for my mistake. However the info and link is good right here, and maybe somebody else can use it too.John5Russell3Finley 22:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Whole article is full of Kurdish nationalist crap

Somebody please clean this article from nationalist crap. Whole idea of Kurdish and Hurrian connection is just an illusion Kurdish nationalist propaganda. This article is a shame for wikipedia--85.108.77.245 21:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps... but they are cited claims, and shouldn't just be wiped out without examination. If you believe them to be unreliable sources, make such a case first. Thanatosimii 21:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Claims are not cited. All references in the article are somewhat related to another Kurdish nationalist propaganda (nation building) site. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.108.77.245 (talk) 03:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC).
That's different from uncited, that's an accusation of unreliable. I've read it and it seems to be... not as solid as I'd like, but good enough to not advocate removal without specific good cause given. Thanatosimii 04:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anachronistic

I removed "The prehistoric culture of northern Mesopotamia is described in the Tell Halaf, Tell Brak, Ubaid and Uruk period articles." I'm not sure why it was added, but this is why I removed it. Those cultures are at least hundreds, and some thousands of years seperated from the beginning of Hurrian influence in mesopotamia. Accordingly, it's pretty irrelevant. Hurrians appear no earlier than the old Babylonian kingdom, and the written form of their language shows that they first interacted with cuneaform(hence, their entry to Mesopotamia would be around this time) around 2200 BC. They don't have anything to do with the Halaf, Hassuna, Ubaid, and Uruk cultures at all. Thanatosimii 16:54, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kurdish connection

Removed a load of Kurdish relations or connections to Hurrians, they are also unsourced. --Vonones 23:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Diakonov according to Renfrew

Right now, it looks like Renfrew has misunderstood Diakonov. A correct summary is in Mallory, p.35-36 (He should know, he's the editor of JIES, which carried Diakonov's article in 1985). Diakonov links Armenians to Urartu (as one of their successors), which was long after the Hurrians and Mitanni. When Diakonov is neither the only nor the ultimate authority on this, and other summaries of his work are available, as well his article for direct citation, citing Renfrew for a convenient misreference to Diakonov is cherry-picking and WP:TE. rudra (talk) 05:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)