Hittite cuneiform

As Harry A. Hoffner and Craig Melchert point out: "It is therefore generally assumed that Ḫattušili I (ca.

"[1] Alwin Kloekhorst, on the other hand, while affirming that Hittite cuneiform derives from Old Babylonian, casts doubt on the role of Ḫattušili I in its adoption, claiming that "the transfer of Syro-Babylonian scribal tradition into Asia Minor may have been a more gradual process that predates the Hittites occupation of Hattuša.

[4] About half of the signs have syllabic values, the remaining are used as ideograms or logograms to represent the entire word—much as the characters "$", "%" and "&" are used in contemporary English.

This system distinguishes the following consonants (notably dropping the Akkadian s series), combined with the vowels a, e, i, u.

Additional ya (=I.A 𒄿𒀀), wa (=PI 𒉿) and wi (=wi5=GEŠTIN 𒃾 "wine") signs are introduced.