Sidetic is a member of the extinct Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is known from legends of coins, found in Side at the coast, that date to the period of approximately the 5th to 3rd centuries BCE, and from two Greek–Sidetic bilingual inscriptions from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. The Greek historian Arrian in his Anabasis Alexandri (mid-2nd century CE) mentions the existence of a peculiar indigenous language in the city of Side, which is assumed to be the language of the coins and inscriptions.
Sidetic was probably closely related to Lydian language, Carian language and Lycian language.
Sidetic was written with a script of the Anatolian group. The Sidetic alphabet has 31 identified letters, a few of which are clearly derived from Greek. The script has been partially deciphered, though the phonetic values of many letters are uncertain.
Evidence
Inscriptions and coins
Coins from Side were first discovered in the 19th century, which bore legends in a then-unknown script. In 1914, an altar came to light in Side with a Greek inscription and a Sidetic one, but the latter could not be deciphered. It was only after the discovery of a second Greek-Sidetic bilingual inscription in 1949, that Hellmut Theodor Bossert was able to identify 14 letters of the Sidetic script using the two bilinguals.
In 1964 a large stone block was unearthed near the east gate of Side, with two longer Sidetic texts, including loan words from Greek (
istratag from στρατηγός, 'commander' and
anathema- from ἀνάθημα, 'votive offering'). In 1972, a text was found outside Side for the first time, at the neighbouring town of
Lyrbe-Seleukia. Currently, eleven Sidetic coins and several coins with Sidetic legends are known.
Citations
In addition to the inscriptions, two Sidetic words are known from ancient Greek texts: ζειγάρη for
cicada,
[Hesychius says the Greek equivalent is τέττιξ, or cicada: ] mentioned by the ancient lexicographer Hesychius, and λαέρκινον for
Valeriana, cited by
Galen. In addition, it is believed that some incomprehensible characters in the third book of
Hippocrates'
Epidemics were originally quotations of the doctor Mnemon of Side, which might have been in the Sidetic script.
Catalogue of Sidetic texts
The designated number and date of discovery are given:
-
S1 = S I.1.1 Artemon bilingual from Side (1914).
-
S2 = S I.1.2 Apollonios bilingual from Side (1949).
-
S3 & S4 = S I.2.1-2 Strategos dedications from Side (1964).
-
S5 = S II.1.1 Palimpsest bronze voting tablet (1969).
-
S6 = S I.1.3 Euempolos bilingual from Lyrbe-Seleukia (1972).
-
S7 = S I.2.3 Inscription on fragment of the rim of a pot (1982).
-
S8 = S I.2.4 Inscription on stone Heraldes relief (1982).
-
S9 = S I.2.5 A list of names,
-
S10 = S III 5th century BC coins with around twenty different legends (since 19th century).
-
S11 Words possibly from Mnemon,
-
S12 = S II.2.1 A steatite scarab, of uncertain provenance ("acquired in Turkey"); on its underside three (?) hardly identifiable signs have been carved, possibly Sidetic (2005).
-
S13 = S I.2.6 Graffito from Lyrbe-Seleukia (2014).
In addition a few Sidetic words have been handed down via classical authors, though not written in Sidetic script: "laerkinon" (λαέρκινον, = the herb valerian), "zeigarê" (ζειγάρη, a cricket, cicada).[Nollé (1983) p. 95.]
Characteristics of Sidetic
The Sidetic script
Texts in the Sidetic language are written right to left in an alphabet of 31 distinct letters in inscriptions, plus another 4 characters found only on coins. Recent research is providing updates to the script: there are new letters and variants
[Michaela Zinko & Alfredo Rizza (forth.). The new list is based on a forthcoming research (2025) by M. Zinko and A. Rizza part of which (about the list of letters and their values) was sent to the Unicode Script Encoding Working Group to take into consideration for Unicode 17.0]
| Nollé number | N01 | N02 | N03 | N04 | N05 | N06 | N07 | N08 | N09 | N10 | N11 | N12 | N13 | N14 | N15 | N16 | N17 | N18 |
| |
| () |
| 𐌣 |
| ( š, ṯ) |
| notes | | | | | vowel or semivowel | | | | | | | | | no consensus transliteration | | | value uncertain; likely /ts/ or /ʃ/ |
| Nolle number | N19 | N20 | N21 | N22 | N23 | N24 | N25 | N26 |
| | | |
| () | () |
| r | z (?) |
| | ( δ) |
| notes | | | | unknown vowel | | perhaps β | | probably z |
| Extended repertoire | | | | |
| | | | Ω |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| notes | letters attested only from coins |
The values of two-thirds of the letters are now firmly established, but there are still significant uncertainties: for example, while the majority view is that the frequent vertical strokes ( or ) are a character denoting a sibilant ( z or s), that as a genitival ending would fit in nicely with the usual paradigms of the Anatolian languages,[ (in Spanish)] others interpret the strokes as word dividers.
Grammar
The inscriptions show that Sidetic was already strongly influenced by Greek at the time when they were written. Like
Lycian language and
Carian language, it was part of the
Luwian language family. However, only a few words can be derived from Luwian roots, like
maśara 'for the gods' (Luwian
masan(i)-, 'god', 'divinity'), and, possibly,
malwadas 'votive offering' (Luwian
malwa-; but alternative readings are possible, for example,
Malya das, 'he dedicated to Malya ='). It has been argued that there were also Anatolian pronouns (
ev, 'this';
ab, 'he/she/it'), conjunctions (
ak and
za, 'and'), prepositions (
de, 'for'), and adverbs (
osod, 'there').
The declension of nouns basically follows a familiar Anatolian language pattern:
No verbs have yet been securely identified. A promising candidate is ozad, 'he offered', dedicated' (twice attested with object anathemataz, 'sacrifices'), a 3rd person singular preterite with the common Anatolian ending -d.
Like the neighbouring Pamphylian Greek, aphaeresis is frequent in names in Sidetic (e.g. Poloniw for Apollonios, Thandor for Athenodoros), as is syncope (e.g. Artmon for Artemon).
See also
Further reading
-
Zinko, Christian, and Zinko, Michaela. "Sidetisch – Ein Update zu Schrift und Sprache". In: Hrozný and Hittite: The First Hundred Years
(In German)
External links
