Britannica
Sources used in this answer
How many vowels did Hittite, Palaic, and Lycian have?
Created from Britannica articles
using AI.
AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Anatolian languages
Distribution of the Anatolian languages.
Hittite, Palaic, and Lycian each feature a four-vowel system consisting of a, e, i, and u. This system represents a reduction from the five-vowel system of Proto-Indo-European, caused by the merger of the inherited o vowel with other vowels.1
While the Lycian alphabet itself contains six vowel symbols, linguistic analysis of the Anatolian languages identifies the underlying phonological system of Lycian as having four vowels.21