naturalplastic wrote:
Through some complicated convoluted distortion of science the Nazis concocted a racial myth that involved appropriating the word "Aryan", and applying the word to Nordics, and Germans.
The earliest evidence of Indo-European in written form is the treaty between the Indo-European speaking Hittites and the Mittani tribe.
In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni (between Suppiluliuma and Shattiwaza, c. 1380 BC), the hindu deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) are invoked. Kikkuli's horse training text (circa 1400 BC) includes technical terms such as aika (Vedic Sanskrit eka, one), tera (tri, three), panza (pañca, five), satta (sapta, seven), na (nava, nine), vartana (vartana, round). The numeral aika "one" is of particular importance because it places the superstrate in the vicinity of Indo-Aryan proper (Vedic Sanskrit eka, with regular contraction of /ai/ to [eː]) as opposed to Indo-Iranian or early Iranian (which has *aiva; compare Vedic eva "only") in general.
Another text has babru(-nnu) (babhru, brown), parita(-nnu) (palita, grey), and pinkara(-nnu) (pingala, red). Their chief festival was the celebration of the solstice (vishuva) which was common in most cultures in the ancient world. The Mitanni warriors were called marya (Hurrian: maria-nnu), the term for (young) warrior in Sanskrit as well; note mišta-nnu (= miẓḍha,~ Sanskrit mīḍha) "payment (for catching a fugitive)
it's interesting not just because of the antiquity of this written treaty but also because it took place in the Anotolian peninsula virtually on the doorstep of Europe (Greece is across the Bosphorous). It suggests the earliest speakers of Iranian and Greek evolved from these Hindu hittites