Six Indo-European Anatolian languages comprise the Hittite-Luwian group: Hittite, Palaic, and Lydian form one subgroup; Cuneiform Luwian, Hieroglyphic Luwian, and Lycian form a second. (Some modern linguists have proposed three other languages of southern Anatolia—Carian, Pisidian, and Sidetic—as additions to the Hittite-Luwian group, but evidence remains scanty.)

Hittite, the most important language of the group—uniquely—maintains certain features that have been lost in all the other Indo-European languages.

Written from at least 1700, Hittite employs a form of Akkadian cuneiform writing, contains numerous loan words from Luwian, Hattic, and Hurrian, and seems to use, randomly, vocabulary from both Akkadian and Sumerian.

The earliest known member of a Hittite-speaking dynasty, Pithana, was based at the city of Kussara.

In the eighteenth century BCE, Anitta, his son and successor, makes the Hittite speaking city of Nesa into one of his capitals and adopts the Hittite language for his inscriptions there.