Kaskian language

{{confused|Kaska language}}

{{short description|Unclassified language of Bronze Age Anatolia}}

{{infobox language

|name=Kaskian

|nativename={{lang|zsk|Kaška}}

|region=Northeastern Anatolia
ColchisJoachim Menant (1874), Annales des rois d'Assyrie (Paris) p.161

|ethnicity=Kaskians

|era=Bronze Age

|familycolor=unclassified

|family=unclassified

|iso3=zsk

|linglist=zsk

|glotto=none

}}

Kaskian (Kaskean) was the language of the Kaskians (Kaska) of northeastern Bronze Age Anatolia in the mountains along the Black Sea coast. The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture lists the Kaskians as non–Indo-European.Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture p.29 (1997) https://archive.org/details/EncyclopediaOfIndoEuropeanCulture/page/n63/mode/2up?q=Kaskians There are a number of theories regarding the language family to which it belonged.

It is sometimes suspected that Kaskian was related to the pre-Hittite Hattic language, based on toponyms and personal names; the Hattic moon god was named Kasku. Conversely, the Kaskian language may have been an Indo-European language, perhaps related to Thraco-Phrygian.Fred Woudhuizen. The Saga of the Argonauts: A Reflex of Thraco-Phrygian Maritime Encroachment on the Southern Pontic Littoral Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society. 2012. https://www.academia.edu/7174237/The_Saga_of_the_Argonauts_A_Reflex_of_Thraco_Phrygian_Maritime_Encroachment_on_the_Southern_Pontic_Littoral There may also be connections to the Northwest Caucasian languages; the name KaskianHittite Kaškaš, Assyrian Kaška, Egyptian Kškš may be cognate with an old name for Circassia,Arabic kašak, Old Georgian kaški, Old Armenian gašk, Old Russian kasogi, Ossetic kæsæg, Byzantine Greek Κασαχία Kasakhía and the name of one of the tribes in the Kaskian confederation, the Abešla, may be cognate with the endonym of the Abkhaz people and some Circassian people,Abkhaz Аҧсуа Apswa, Old Georgian apsil-, apšil-, Old Armenian apšeł-k, Greek Αψίλαι apsílai, Latin Absilae suggesting the Kaskians proper and Abešla might have been the ancestors of the Circassians and other Caucasian peoples.George Hewitt, 1998. The Abkhazians, p 49 It has been conjectured that Kaskian might belong to the Zan family of languages, and have affinities to Megrelian or Laz.{{cite journal |last=Singer |first=Itamar |date=2007 |title=Who were the Kaška? |url=https://colchianstudies.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/singer__kaska__phasis_20071.pdf|journal=Phasis |publisher=Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University |volume=10 |issue=II |pages=178 |access-date=6 June 2018}}

In 2023, D. Sasseville presented an unknown language preserved on several tablet fragments from the archives of Hattusa and argued on methodological grounds that it is the Kaskean language.{{cite web | url=https://www.academia.edu/106026314 | title=Kaskean. A new recorded language in the archives of Ḫattuša? | last1=Sasseville | first1=David }}