What the language of the Hittites was we have yet to learn. But the proper names preserved on the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments show that it did not belong to the Semitic family of speech, and an analysis of the Hittite inscriptions further makes it evident that it made large use of suffixes. But we must be on our guard against supposing that the language was uniform throughout the district in which the Hittite population lived. Different tribes doubtless spoke different dialects, and some of these dialects probably differed widely from each other. But they all belonged to the same general type and class of language, and may therefore be collectively spoken of as the Hittite language, just as the various dialects of England are collectively termed English. Indeed, we find the same type of language extending far eastward of Kappadokia, if we may trust the proper names recorded in the Assyrian inscriptions. Names of a distinctively Hittite cast are met with as far as the frontiers of the ancient kingdom of Ararat, and it may be that the language of Ararat itself, the so-called Vannic, may belong to the same family of speech. As the cuneiform inscriptions in which this language is embodied have now been deciphered, we shall be able to determine the question as soon as the Hittite texts also render up their secrets. In the south of Palestine the Hittites must have lost their old language and have adopted that of their Semitic neighbours at an early period. In Northern Syria the change was longer in coming about. The last king of Carchemish bears a non-Semitic name, but a Semitic god was worshipped at Aleppo, and Kadesh on the Orontes remained a Semitic sanctuary. The Hittite occupation of Hamath seems to have lasted for a short time only. Its king, who appears on the Assyrian monuments as the contemporary of Ahab, has the Semitic name of Irkhulena, 'the moon-god belongs to us'; and his successors were equally of Semitic origin. It is more doubtful whether Tou or Toi, whose son came to David with an offer of alliance, bears a name which can be explained from the Semitic lexicon. In the fastnesses of the Taurus, however, the Hittite dialects were slow in dying. In the days of St. Paul the people of Lystra still spoke 'the speech of Lykaonia,' although the official language of Kappadokia had long since become Aramaic. But the Aramaic was itself supplanted by Greek, and before the downfall of the Roman empire Greek was the common language of all Asia Minor. In its turn Greek has been superseded in these modern times by Turkish.