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Dacian () is an extinct language generally believed to be a member of the Indo-European language family that was spoken in the ancient region of Dacia.
The Dacian language is poorly documented. Unlike Phrygian, which is documented by c. 200 inscriptions, only one Dacian inscription is believed to have survived. The Dacian names for a number of medicinal plants and herbs may survive in ancient literary texts, including about 60 plant-names in Dioscorides. About 1,150 personal names and 900 toponyms may also be of Dacian origin. Of about 100 Dacian words reconstructed through 20th century comparative linguistics techniques, only 20–25 had achieved wide acceptance by 1982.
Some scholars have used the substratum words found in Romanian, the language that is spoken today in most of the region once occupied by Dacian-speakers, to reconstruct Dacian words. According to Romanian historian Ion I. Russu, there are supposedly over 160 Romanian words of Dacian origin, representing, together with derivates, 10% of the basic Romanian vocabulary; however, many linguists consider them debatable. Romanian words for which a Dacian origin has been proposed include: balaur ("dragon"), brânză ("cheese"), mal ("bank, shore"), and strugure ("grape"). The value of the Romanian words of possible pre-Roman origin as a source for the Dacian language is limited because there is no certainty that these are of Dacian origin. Some of them may be actually inherited from Latin (e.g., melc ("snail") may derive from Latin limax/proto-Romance * limace; cf. It. lumaca, by metathesis of "m" with "l"), and others are clear loanwords from Albanian (e.g. Romanian vatră < Tosk Albanian vatër). p. 606: The methodology that reconstructs Dacian words using Romanian words of pre-Roman origin that also have in Albanian, but which have not been attested to be Dacian or which have not been documented in Dacian territory is speculatively based on the unproven theory that Dacian constitutes the main linguistic substratum of Romanian and a closely related language to Albanian, a circular method criticised by mainstream historical linguistics..
The substratum words have been used, in some cases, to corroborate Dacian words reconstructed from place- and personal names, e.g., Dacian *balas = "white" (from personal name Balius), Romanian bălan = "white-haired" However, even in this case, it cannot be determined with certainty whether the Romanian word derives from the presumed Dacian word or from its Old Slavic cognate belu.
According to one scenario, proto-Thracian populations emerged during the Bronze Age from the fusion of the indigenous Eneolithic population with the intruders of the transitional Indo-Europeanization Period. From these proto-Thracians, in the Iron Age, developed the Dacians / North Thracians of the Danubian-Carpathian Area on the one hand and the Thracians of the eastern Balkan Peninsula on the other.
According to Georgiev, the Dacian language was spread south of the Danube by tribes from Carpathia, who reached the central Balkans in the period 2000–1000 BC, with further movements (e.g., the Triballi tribe) after 1000 BC, until c. 300 BC.
Several linguists classify Dacian as a satem IE language: Russu, Rădulescu, Katičić and Križman. In Crossland's opinion (1982), both Thracian and Dacian feature one of the main satem characteristics, the change of Indo-European * k and * g to s and z. But the other characteristic satem changes are doubtful in Thracian and are not evidenced in Dacian. In any case, the satem/centum distinction, once regarded as a fundamental division between IE languages, is no longer considered as important in historical linguistics by mainstream scholars. It is now recognised that it is only one of many in the IE zone; that languages can exhibit both types at the same time, and that these may change over time within a particular language. There is much controversy about the place of Dacian in the IE evolutionary tree. According to a dated view, Dacian derived from a Daco-Thraco-Phrygian (or "Paleo-Balkan") branch of IE. Today, Phrygian is no longer widely seen as linked in this way to Dacian and Thracian.
In contrast, the hypothesis of a Thraco-Dacian or Daco-Thracian branch of IE, indicating a close link between the Thracian and Dacian languages, has numerous adherents, including Russu 1967, Georg Solta 1980, Vraciu 1980, Crossland 1982, Rădulescu 1984, 1987. Mihailov (2008) and Trask 2000. The Daco-Thracian theory is ultimately based on the testimony of several Greco-Roman authors: most notably the Roman imperial-era historian and geographer Strabo, who states that the Dacians, Getae, Mysians and Thracians all spoke the same language. Herodotus states that "the Getae are the bravest and the most just amongst the Thracians", linking the Getae with the Thracians. Some scholars also see support for a close link between the Thracian and Dacian languages in the works of Cassius Dio, Trogus Pompeius, Appian and Pliny the Elder.
But the Daco-Thracian theory has been challenged since the 1960s by the Bulgarian linguist Vladimir I. Georgiev and his followers. Georgiev argues, on phonetic, lexical and toponymic grounds, that Thracian, Dacian and Phrygian were completely different languages, each a separate branch of IE, and that no Daco-Thraco-Phrygian or Daco-Thracian branches of IE ever existed. Georgiev argues that the distance between Dacian and Thracian was approximately the same as that between the Armenian and Persian language languages, which are completely different languages. In elaborating the phonology of Dacian, Georgiev uses plant-names attested to in Dioscorides and Pseudo-Apuleius, ascertaining their literal meanings, and hence their etymology, using the Greek translations provided by those authors. The phonology of Dacian produced in this way is very different from that of Thracian; the vowel change IE *o > *a recurs and the k-sounds undergo the changes characteristic of the satem languages. For the phonology of Thracian, Georgiev uses the principle that an intelligible placename in a modern language is likely to be a translation of an ancient name.
Georgiev (1977) and Duridanov (1985) argue that the phonetic development from proto-Indo-European of the two languages was clearly divergent.
| + Divergent sound-changes in Paleo-Balkan languages according to Georgiev (1977) ! Proto-Indo-European !! Dacian !! Thracian !! Phrygian | |||
| *o | a | a | o |
| *e | e | e | |
| *ew | e | eu | eu |
| *aw | a | au | |
| *r̥, *l̥ | ri | ur (or), ur (ol) | al |
| *n̥, *m̥ | a | un | an |
| *b, *d, *g | b, d, g | p, t, k | p, t, k |
| *p, *t, *k | p, t, k | ph, th, kh | ph, th, kh |
| *s | s | s | ∅ |
| *sw | s | s | w |
| *sr | str | str | br |
| + Divergent sound-changes in Dacian and Thracian according to Duridanov (1985) ! Indo-European !! Dacian !! Thracian | ||
| *b, *d, *g | b, d, g | p, t, k |
| *p, *t, *k | p, t, k | ph, th, kh |
| *ē | ä (a) | ē |
| *e (after consonant) | e | |
| *ai | a | ai |
| *ei | e | ei |
| *dt (*tt) | s | st |
Georgiev and Duridanov argue that the phonetic divergences above prove that the Dacian and Thracian (and Phrygian, per Georgiev) languages could not have descended from the same branch of Indo-European, but must have constituted separate, stand-alone branches. However, the validity of this conclusion has been challenged due to a fundamental weakness in the source-material for sound-change reconstruction. Since the ancient Balkan languages never developed their own alphabets, ancient Balkan linguistic elements (mainly placenames and personal names) are known only through their Greek or Latin transcripts. These may not accurately reproduce the indigenous sounds, e.g., Greek and Latin had no dedicated graphic signs for phonemes such as č, ġ, ž, š and others. Thus, if a Thracian or Dacian word contained such a phoneme, a Greek or Latin transcript would not represent it accurately. Because of this, there are divergent and even contradictory assumptions for the phonological structure and development of the Dacian and Thracian languages. This can be seen from the different sound-changes proposed by Georgiev and Duridanov, reproduced above, even though these scholars agree that Thracian and Dacian were different languages. Also, some sound-changes proposed by Georgiev have been disputed, e.g., that IE *T (tenuis) became Thracian TA (tenuis aspiratae), and *M (mediae) = T: it has been argued that in both languages IE *MA (mediae aspiratae) fused into M and that *T remained unchanged. Georgiev's claim that IE *o mutated into a in Thracian, has been disputed by Russu.
A comparison of Georgiev's and Duridanov's reconstructed words with the same meaning in the two languages shows that, although they shared some words, many words were different. However, even if such reconstructions are accepted as valid, an insufficient quantity of words have been reconstructed in each language to establish that they were unrelated.
According to Georgiev (1977), Dacian placenames and personal names are completely different from their Thracian counterparts. However, Tomaschek (1883) and Mateescu (1923) argue that some common elements exist in Dacian and Thracian placenames and personal names, but Polomé considered that research had, by 1982, confirmed Georgiev's claim of a clear onomastic divide between Thrace and Moesia/Dacia.
Georgiev highlighted a striking divergence between placename-suffixes in Dacia/Moesia and Thrace: Daco-Moesian placenames generally carry the suffix -dava (variants: -daba, -deva), meaning "town" or "stronghold". But placenames in Thrace proper, i.e. south of the Balkan mountains commonly end in -para or -pera, meaning "village" or "settlement" (cf Sanskrit pura = "town", from which derives Hindi town-suffix -pur, e.g., Udaipur = "city of Udai"). Map showing -dava/-para divide Georgiev argues that such toponymic divergence renders the notion that Thracian and Dacian were the same language implausible. However, this thesis has been challenged on a number of grounds:
Georgiev's thesis has by no means achieved general acceptance: the Thraco-Dacian theory retains substantial support among linguists. Crossland (1982) considers that the divergence of a presumed original Thraco-Dacian language into northern and southern groups of dialects is not so significant as to rank them as separate languages. According to Georg Solta (1982), there is no significant difference between Dacian and Thracian. Rădulescu (1984) accepts that Daco-Moesian possesses a certain degree of dialectal individuality, but argues that there is no fundamental separation between Daco-Moesian and Thracian. Renfrew (1990) argues that there is no doubt that Thracian is related to the Dacian which was spoken in modern-day Romania before that area was occupied by the Romans. However, all these assertions are largely speculative, due to the lack of evidence for both languages.
Polomé (1982) considers that the evidence presented by Georgiev and Duridanov, although substantial, is not sufficient to determine whether Daco-Moesian and Thracian were two dialects of the same language or two distinct languages.
As in the case of any Romance language, it is argued that Romanian language derived from Vulgar Latin through a series of internal linguistic changes and because of Dacian or northern Thracian influences on Vulgar Latin in the late Roman era. This influence explains a number of differences between the Romanian-Thracian substrate and the French-Celtic, Spanish-Basque, and Portuguese-Celtic substrates. Romanian has no major dialects, perhaps a reflection of its origin in a small mountain region, which was inaccessible but permitted easy internal communication. The history of Romanian is based on speculation because there are virtually no written records of the area from the time of the withdrawal of the Romans around 300 AD until the end of the barbarian invasions around 1300 AD.
Many scholars, mostly Romanian, have conducted research into a Dacian linguistic substratum for the modern Romanian language. There is still not enough evidence for this. None of the few Dacian words known (mainly plant-names) and none of the Dacian words reconstructed from placenames have specific correspondent words in Romanian (as opposed to general correspondents in several IE languages). DEX doesn't mention any Dacian etymology, just a number of terms of unknown origin. Most of these are assumed by several scholars to be of Dacian origin, but there is no proof that they are. It seems plausible that a few Dacian words may have survived in the speech of the Carpathian inhabitants through successive changes in the region's predominant languages: Dacian/Celtic (to AD 100), Latin/Sarmatian (c. 100–300), Germanic (c. 300–500), Slavic/Turkic (c. 500–1300), up to the Romanian language when the latter became the predominant language in the region.
It is also argued that the Dacian language may form the substratum of Common Romanian, which developed from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Balkans north of the Jirecek line, which roughly divides Latin influence from Greek influence. About 300 words in Eastern Romance languages, Daco-Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, may derive from Dacian, and many of these show a satem-reflex. Whether Dacian forms the substratum of Common Romanian is disputed, yet this theory does not rely only on the Romanisation having occurred in Roman Dacia, as Dacian was also spoken in the Roman province of Moesia and northern Dardania. The territory that later became Moesia was conquered by the Romans more than a century before Dacia, and its Latinity is confirmed by Christian sources.
Many of the pre-Roman lexical items of Romanian have Albanian parallels, a number of which are however loanwords from Albanian. The words that may be cognates with the Albanian ones, and not loanwords from Albanian, indicate that the substrate language of Romanian may have been on the same Albanoid. Some scholars speculate they may have been Dacian, but there is no way to prove it.
"The Thracian language formed a close group with the Baltic (resp. Balto-Slavic), the Dacian and the "Pelasgian" languages. More distant were its relations with the other Indo-European languages, and especially with Greek, the Italic and Celtic languages, which exhibit only isolated phonetic similarities with Thracian; the Tokharian and the Hittite were also distant."Duridanov's cognates of the reconstructed Dacian words are found mostly in the Baltic languages, followed by Albanian without considering Thracian. Parallels have enabled linguists, using the techniques of comparative linguistics, to decipher the meanings of several Dacian and Thracian placenames with, they claim, a high degree of probability. Of 74 Dacian placenames attested in primary sources and considered by Duridanov, a total of 62 have Baltic cognates, most of which were rated "certain" by Duridanov. Polomé considers that these parallels are unlikely to be coincidence. Duridanov's explanation is that proto-Dacian and proto-Thracian speakers were in close geographical proximity with proto-Baltic speakers for a prolonged period, perhaps during the period 3000–2000 BC. A number of scholars such as the Russian Topоrov have pointed to the many close parallels between Dacian and Thracian placenames and those of the Baltic languages language-zone – Lithuania, Latvia and in East Prussia (where an extinct but well-documented Baltic language, Old Prussian, was spoken until it was displaced by German language during the Middle Ages).
After creating a list of names of rivers and personal names with a high number of parallels, the Romanian linguist Mircea M. Radulescu classified the Daco-Moesian and Thracian as Baltic languages of the south and also proposed such classification for Illyrian. The German linguist Schall also attributed a southern Baltic classification to Dacian. The American linguist Harvey Mayer refers to both Dacian and Thracian as Baltic languages. He claims to have sufficient evidence for classifying them as Baltoidic or at least "Baltic-like," if not exactly, Baltic dialects or languages and classifies Dacians and Thracians as "Balts by extension". According to him, Albanian, the descendant of Illyrian, escaped any heavy Baltic influence of Daco-Thracian. Mayer claims that he extracted an unambiguous evidence for regarding Dacian and Thracian as more tied to Lithuanian than to Latvian. The Czech archaeologist Kristian Turnvvald classified Dacian as Danube Baltic. The Venezuelan-Lithuanian historian Jurate de Rosales classifies Dacian and Thracian as Baltic languages.
It appears from the study of hydronyms (river and lake names) that Baltic languages once predominated much farther eastwards and southwards than their modern confinement to the southeastern shores of the Baltic sea, and included regions that later became predominantly Slavic-speaking. The zone of Baltic hydronyms extends along the Baltic coast from the mouth of the Oder as far as Riga, eastwards as far as the line Yaroslavl–Moscow–Kursk and southwards as far as the line Oder mouth–Warsaw–Kyiv–Kursk: it thus includes much of northern and eastern Poland, Belarus and central European Russia.
The Romanian philologist Nicolae Densușianu argued in his book Dacia Preistorică (Prehistoric Dacia), published in 1913, that Latin and Dacian were the same language or were mutually intelligible. His work was considered by mainstream linguists to be pseudoscience. It was reprinted under the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. The first article to revive Densușianu's theory was an unsigned paper, "The Beginnings of the History of the Romanian People", included in Anale de istorie, a journal published by the Romanian Communist Party's Institute of Historical and Social-Political Studies. The article claimed that the Thracian language was a pre-Romance or Latin language. Arguments used in the article include for instance the absence of Interpreting between the Dacians and the Romans, as depicted on the bas-reliefs of Trajan's column. The bibliography mentions, apart from Densușianu, the work of French academician Louis Armand, an engineer who allegedly showed that "the Thraco-Dacians spoke a pre-Romance language". Similar arguments are found in Iosif Constantin Drăgan's We, the Thracians (1976). About the same time Ion Horațiu Crișan wrote "Burebista and His Age" (1975). Nevertheless, the theory didn't rise to official status under Ceaușescu's rule.
Opinions about a hypothetical latinity of Dacian can be found in earlier authors: Sextus Rufus (Breviarum C.VIII, cf. Bocking Not, Dign. II, 6), Ovid (Trist. II, 188–189) and Horace (Odes, I, 20).
Iosif Constantin Drăgan and the New York City-based physician Napoleon Săvescu continued to support this theory and published a book entitled We Are Not Rome's Descendants. They also published a magazine called Noi, Dacii ("Us Dacians") and organised a yearly "International Congress of Dacology".
Less radical theories have suggested that Dacian was either Italic languages or Celtic languages, like the speakers of those Indo-European languages in Western Europe who became Latinized and now speak Romance languages.
Over time, some peripheral areas of the Geto-Dacians' territories were affected by the presence of other people, such as the Celts in the west, the Illyrians in the south-west, the Greeks and Scythians in the east and the Bastarnae in the north-east. Nevertheless, between the Danube River (West), the Haemus Mountains (S), the Black Sea (E), the Dniester River (NE) and the northern Carpathians, a continuous Geto-Dacian presence as majority was permanently maintained, according to some scholars. According to the Bulgarian linguist Georgiev, the Daco-Mysian region included Dacia (approximately contemporary Romania and Hungary east of the Tisza River, Mysia (Moesia) and Scythia Minor (contemporary Dobrogea).
Also, a formal statement by Pliny indicated the river Vistula river as the western boundary of Dacia, according to Nicolet (1991). Between the Prut and the Dniester, the northern extent of the appearance of Geto-Dacian elements in the 4th century BC coincides roughly with the extent of the present-day Republic of Moldova, according to Mielczarek.
According to Müllenhoff (1856), Schütte (1917), Urbańczyk (2001) and Matei-Popescu (2007), Agrippa's commentaries mention the river Vistula as the western boundary of Dacia. Urbańczyk (1997) speculates that according to Agrippa's commentaries, and the map of Agrippa (before 12 BC), the Vistula river separated Germania and Dacia. This map is lost and its contents are unknown However, later Roman geographers, including Ptolemy (AD 90 – c. AD 168) (II.10, III.7) and Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117) considered the Vistula as the boundary between Germania and Sarmatia Europaea, or Germania and Scythia.
In the 1st century AD, the Iazyges settled in the west of Dacia, on the plain between the Danube and the Tisza rivers, according to some scholars' interpretation of Pliny's text: "The higher parts between the Danube and the Hercynian Forest (Black Forest) as far as the winter quarters of Pannonia at Carnuntum and the plains and level country of the German frontiers there are occupied by the Sarmatian Iazyges, while the Dacians whom they have driven out hold the mountains and forests as far as the river Theiss".
Archaeological sources indicate that the local Celto-Dacian population retained its specificity as late as the 3rd century AD. Archaeological finds dated to the 2nd century AD, after the Roman conquest, indicate that during that period, vessels found in some of the Iazygian cemeteries reveal fairly strong Dacian influence, according to Mocsy. M. Párducz (1956) and Z. Visy (1971) reported a concentration of Dacian-style finds in the Cris-Mures-Tisza region and in the Danube bend area near Budapest. These maps of finds remain valid today, but they have been complemented with additional finds that cover a wider area, particularly the interfluvial region between the Danube and Tisza. However, this interpretation has been invalidated by late 20th-century archaeology, which has discovered Sarmatian settlements and burial sites all over the Hungarian Plain on both sides of the Tisza, e.g., Gyoma in south-eastern Hungary and Nyiregyhaza in north-eastern Hungary. The Barrington Atlas shows the Iazyges occupying both sides of Tisza (map 20).
After the Marcomannic Wars (166–180 AD), Dacian groups from outside Roman Dacia had been set in motion, and thus were the 12,000 Dacians "from the neighbourhood of Roman Dacia sent away from their own country". Their native country could have been the Upper Tisza region but other places cannot be excluded.
By 60 BC, Celtic political hegemony in the region appears to have collapsed, and the indigenous Dacian tribes throughout the region appear to have reasserted their identity and political independence. This process may have been partly due to the career of the Getan king Burebista (ruled ca 80 – 44 BC), who appears to have coalesced several Getic and Dacian tribes under his leadership. It is likely that in this period, the Dacian language regained its former predominance in Transylvania.
In 29–26 BC, the southern Danubian area that later became known as Moesia was conquered and annexed by the Romans. There followed an intensive process of Romanisation. The Danube, as the new frontier of the empire and main fluvial supply route for the Roman military, was soon dotted with forts and supply depots, which were garrisoned by several Roman legion and many auxiliary units. Numerous colonies of Roman army veterans were established. The presence of the Roman military resulted in a huge influx of non-Dacian immigrants, such as soldiers, their dependents, ancillary workers and merchants, from every part of the Roman Empire, especially from the rest of the Balkans, into Moesia. It is likely that by the time the emperor Trajan invaded Dacia (101–6), the Dacian language had been largely replaced by Latin in Moesia.
The conquest of Dacia saw a similar process of Romanisation north of the Danube, so that by 200 AD, Latin was probably predominant in the zone permanently occupied by the Romans. In addition, it appears that some unoccupied parts of the dava zone were overrun, either before or during the Dacian Wars, by Sarmatian tribes; for example, eastern Wallachia, which had fallen under the Roxolani by 68 AD. By around 200 AD, it is likely that the Dacian language was confined to those parts of the dava zone occupied by the Free Dacian groups, which may have amounted to little more than the eastern Carpathians.
Under the emperor Aurelian (r. 270–275), the Romans withdrew their administration and armed forces, and possibly a significant proportion of the provincial population, from the part of Dacia they ruled. The subsequent linguistic status of this region is disputed. Traditional Romanian historiography maintains that a Latin-speaking population persisted into medieval times, to form the basis of today's Romanian-speaking inhabitants. But this hypothesis lacks evidential basis (e.g., the absence of any post-275 Latin inscriptions in the region, other than on imported Roman coins/artefacts). What is certain is that by AD 300, the entire North Danubian region had fallen under the political domination of Germanic-speaking groups, a hegemony that continued until c. AD 500: the Goths held overall hegemony, and under them, lesser Germanic tribes such as the Taifali and Gepids. Some historians consider that the region became Germanic-speaking during this period. At least one part, Wallachia, may have become Slavic-speaking by AD 600, as it is routinely referred to Sklavinía (Greek for "Land of the Slavs") by contemporary Byzantine chroniclers. The survival of the Dacian language in this period is impossible to determine, due to a complete lack of documentation. However, it is generally believed that the language was extinct by AD 600.
North of the Danube, the dava-zone is largely consistent with Ptolemy's definition of Dacia's borders (III.8.1–3) i.e. the area contained by the river Ister (Danube River) to the south, the river Thibiscum (Timiș) to the west, the upper river Tyras (Dniester river) to the north and the river Hierasus (Siret River) to the east. To the west, it appears that the -dava placenames in Olteanu's map lie within the line of the Timiş, extended northwards. However, four davas are located beyond the Siret, Ptolemy's eastern border. But three of these, Piroboridava, Tamasidava and Zargidava, are described by Ptolemy as pará (Gr."very close") to the Siret: Piroboridava, the only one securely located, was 3 km from the Siret. The location of Clepidava is uncertain: Olteanu locates it in north-east Bessarabia, but Georgiev places it further west, in south-west Ukraine, between the upper reaches of the Siret and Dniester rivers.
South of the Danube in the Roman era, a dialect of Dacian, referred to as "Daco-Moesian" by some modern scholars, was also spoken in the region called Moesia by the Romans, which was divided by them into the Roman provinces of Moesia Superior (roughly modern Serbia) and Moesia Inferior (modern northern Bulgaria as far as the Balkan range plus Roman Dobruja region). This is evidenced by the distribution of -dava placenames, which occur in the eastern half of Moesia Superior and all over Inferior.
However, the dava-zone was not exclusively or uniformly Dacian-speaking during historical times. Significant Celtic elements survived there into the 2nd century AD: Ptolemy (III.8.3) lists two Celtic peoples, the Taurisci and Anartes, as resident in the northernmost part of Dacia, in the northern Carpathians. The partly Celtic Bastarnae are also attested in this region in literature and the archaeological record during the 1st century BC; they probably remained in the 1st century AD, according to Batty.
Some scholars have asserted that Dacian was the main language of the sedentary population of the Hungarian Plain, at least as far as the river Tisza River, and possibly as far as the Danube. Statements by ancient authors such as Julius Caesar, Strabo and Pliny the Elder have been controversially interpreted as supporting this view, but these are too vague or ambiguous to be of much geographical value. There is little hard evidence to support the thesis of a large ethnic-Dacian population on the Plain:
The hypothesis of a Dacian occupation of Slovakia during the 1st century BC is contradicted by the archaeological evidence that this region featured a predominantly Celtic culture from c. 400 BC; and a sophisticated kingdom of the Boii Celtic tribe. Based in modern-day Bratislava during the 1st century BC, this polity issued its own gold and silver coinage (the so-called "Biatec-type" coins), which bear the names of several kings with recognised Celtic names. This kingdom is also evidenced by numerous Celtic-type oppidum ( oppida), of which Zemplin is the foremost example in south-east Slovakia. Furthermore, the archaeological Puchov culture, present in Slovakia in this period, is considered Celtic by mainstream scholars. Some scholars argue that Zemplin was occupied by Burebista's warriors from about 60 BC onwards, but this is based on the presence of Dacian-style artefacts alongside the Celtic ones, which may simply have been cultural imports. But even if occupation by Dacian troops under Burebista actually occurred, it would probably have been brief, as in 44 BC Burebista died and his kingdom collapsed and split into 4 fragments. In any case, it does not follow that the indigenous population became Dacian-speakers during the period of Dacian control. Karol Pieta's discussion of the ethnicity of the Puchov people shows that opinion is divided between those who attribute the culture to a Celtic group – the Boii or Cotini are the leading candidates – and those who favour a Germanic group, e.g., the Buri. Despite wide acknowledgement of Dacian influence, there is little support for the view that the people of this region were ethnic Dacians.
Note: In the course of the diachronic development of Dacian, a palatalisation of k and g appears to have occurred before front vowels according to the following process
The Dacian linguistic area is characterised mainly with composite names ending in -dava, or variations such as -deva, -daua, -daba, etc. The settlement names ending in these suffixes are geographically grouped as follows:
Besides these regions, similar village names are found in three other places:
A number of Dacian settlements do not have the -dava ending or variant suffix. Some of these are: Acmonia, Aizis, Amutria, Apulon, Arcina, Arcobadara, Arutela, Berzovia, Brucla, Diacum, Dierna, Dinogetia, Drobeta, Egeta, Isaccea, Romula (Romula), Napoca, Oescus, Patruissa, Pinon, Potaissa, Ratiaria, Sarmizegetusa, Tapae, Tibiscum, Tirista, Tsierna, Tyrida, Zaldapa, Zeugma and Zurobara.
Although many Dacian toponyms have uncertain meanings, they are more reliable as sources of Dacian words than the names of medicinal plants provided by Dioscorides, which have led to speculative identifications: out of 57 plants, 25 identifications may be erroneous, according to Asher & Simpson. According to the Bulgarian linguist Decev, of the 42 supposedly Dacian plant names in Dioscorides only 25 are truly Dacian, while 10 are Latin and 7 Greek. Also, of the 31 "Dacian" plant names recorded by Pseudo-Apuleius, 16 are really Dacian, 9 are Latin and 8 are Greek.
Examples of common Dacian, Latin and Greek words in Pseudo-Apuleius:
N.B..
Some linguists are skeptical of this reconstruction methodology of Dacian. The phonetic systems of Dacian and Thracian and their evolution are not reconstructed directly from indigenous elements but from their approximative Greek or Latin transcripts. Greek and Latin had no dedicated graphic signs for phonemes such as č, ġ, ž, š and others. Thus, if a Thracian or Dacian word contained such a phoneme, a Greek or Latin transcript would not represent it accurately. The etymologies that are adduced to back up the proposed Dacian and Thracian vowel and consonant changes, used for word reconstruction with the comparative method, are open to divergent interpretations because the material is related to place names, with the exception of Dacian plant names and the limited number of glosses. Because of this, there are divergent and even contradictory assumptions for the phonological structure and development of the Dacian and Thracian languages. It is doubtful that the Dacian phonological system has been accurately reproduced by Greek or Latin transcripts of indigenous lexica.
In the case of personal names, the choice of the etymology is often a matter of compliance with assumed phonological rules. Since the geographical aspect of the occurrence of sound changes (i.e. o > a) within Thracian territory, based on the work of V. Georgiev, began to be emphasised by some researchers, the chronological aspect has been somewhat neglected. There are numerous cases where lack of information has obscured the vocalism of these idioms, generating the most contradictory theories. Today, some 3,000 Thraco-Dacian lexical units are known. In the case of the oscillation *o / *a, the total number of words containing it is about 30, many more than the ones cited by both Georgiev and Russu, and the same explanation is not valid for all of them.
In 2024, Robert Eggers' remake of Nosferatu utilized Dacian in several instances of Count Orlok dialogue (played by Bill Skarsgård). This was done with the consultation of Romanian screenwriter Florin Lăzărescu.
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