> Archaeological research in the Middle East is revealing how a long-forgotten ancient civilisation used previously undiscovered linguistics to promote multiculturalism and political stability.

Sounds like a bunch of commie gobbledygook. The rest of the article is interesting. I love language learning, and ancient civilizations fascinate me.

>Watar was for instance Hittite for “water”. Duttar was the main part of the Hittite word for “daughter”. “Wine” was wiyana, while card was “heart/cardiac” and newa was their word for “new”.

This is so cool! But then I see trendy crap like this:

>traditions could be preserved and incorporated into the empire’s highly inclusive multicultural religious system.

and I wonder how much I am being informed vs. how much I am being "informed". Do the authors/researchers need to throw in CURRENTYEAR political jargon to get paid?

I seem to be missing something here. Which expressions are you referring to as being political jargon, and why? "Multicultural"?

My money's on "inclusive". That concept seems like a particular bitter pill for some folks.

It's beyond preposterous to think that a long-forgotten empire had the same dreamy pantsuit-wearing aspirations to "multiculturalism" the authors have.

Multiculturalism has been a winning recipe for empire-building since at least Roman times. If it was a feature of the Hittite empire, would it really be that surprising? Perhaps it would, as you seem to believe that pants (of all things) were a necessary precursor, and the historical record for those only goes back to around 500BC.

Sorry, I'm being coy. Your "pantsuit" dig is clearly an attempt to associate multiculturalism with femininity, and therefore weakness. Does that make you feel superior?

Roman times? It's even older. Cyrus the Great won over people by promising to honor their traditions.

He did die in battle against women who would not submit to his will though.

I was brought up in the US, and sadly, from that perspective, history starts at Rome.

That's a bit like saying that the Spanish Armada was "defeated in battle by women" because Elizabeth I was on the throne at the time.

"dreamy pantsuit-wearing aspirations?"

Why do people like you always sound like stereotypes from a 1960s sitcom?

It’s beyond preposterous that you would be so adamantly sure that they wouldn’t. Assimilation might just have to be your favourite new word

You are exposing your ignorance here.

In general you would be right, but in this case you are likely wrong.

This civilization was specifically known for this, evidenced by their flexible religion that added and mutated the nature of Gods to bring diverse regions into the fold.

The Hittites did not last that long...

About 500 years or so.. 1650-1190 according the Wikipedia. It seems like a significant duration.

Compared to their peers of the time?

It would appear that the authors have translated ancient concepts into modern language. Would you prefer they wrote it in Hittite, or would you find Old English more approachable?

The Hittites collected texts written in Luwian (south-eastern Anatolia), Palaian (north-west Anatolia), Hattian (central Anatolia), Hurrian (Syria and northern Mesopotamia), and more recently Kalasmaic (north-west Anatolia). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala%C5%A1ma_language