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The Thracian language () is an extinct and poorly attested language, spoken in ancient times in Southeast Europe by the Thracians. The linguistic affinities of the Thracian language are poorly understood, but it is generally agreed that it was an Indo-European language.
The point at which Thracian became extinct is a matter of dispute. However, it is generally accepted that Thracian was still in use in the 6th century AD: Antoninus of Piacenza wrote in 570 that there was a monastery in the Sinai Peninsula, at which the monks spoke Koine Greek, Latin, Syriac language, Coptic language, and Bessian – a Thracian dialect.Arnold Joseph Toynbee, Some problems of Greek history, Oxford University Press, 1969, p. 56: In the late sixth century there were still Bessian-speaking monks in the monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai (see P. Geyer Itinera Hierosolymitana, Vienna 1898, Templaky, pp. 184; 213.)Oliver Nicholson as ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity; Oxford University Press, 2018; , p. 234: ...The "Piacenza Pilgrim (56) mentioned Bessian-speaking monks on the Sinai Peninsula. ABA J. J. Wilkes, The Illyrians (1992) ...J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams as ed., Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture; Taylor & Francis, 1997; , p. 576: The most recently attested Thracian personal names are found in two monasteries in the Near East (the Bessi of Mt Sinai) dating to the sixth century AD.Bessian is the language of the Bessi, one of the most prominent Thracian tribes. The origin of the monasteries is explained in a mediaeval hagiography written by Symeon the Metaphrast in Vita Sancti Theodosii Coenobiarchae in which he wrote that Saint Theodosius founded on the shore of the Dead Sea a monastery with four churches, in each being spoken a different language, among which Bessian was found. The place at which the monasteries were founded was called "Cutila", which may be a Thracian name.
A classification put forward by Harvey Mayer, suggests that Thracian (and Dacian language) belonged to the Baltic languages branch of Indo-European, or at least is closer to Baltic than any other Indo-European branch.Mayer, Harvey E. " Dacian and Thracian as Southern Baltoidic ." In: Lituanus: Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences. Volume 38, No. 2 – Summer 1992.. Editor of this issue: Antanas Klimas, University of Rochester. . 1992 Lituanus Foundation, Inc. However, this theory has not achieved the status of a general consensus among linguists. These are among many competing hypotheses regarding the classification and fate of Thracian.1994 Gottfried Schramm: A New Approach to Albanian History
Enough Thracian lexical items have survived to show that Thracian was a member of the Indo-European language family.
Besides the aforementioned inscriptions, Thracian may be attested through , toponymy, , , divine names, etc. and by a small number of words cited in Ancient Greek texts as being specifically Thracian.
There are 23 words mentioned by ancient sources considered explicitly of Thracian origin and known meaning.Georgiev, Vladimir I.. "Thrakisch und Dakisch". Band 29/2. Teilband Sprache und Literatur (Sprachen und Schriften Forts.), edited by Wolfgang Haase, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 1983. pp. 1151–1153. Of the words that are preserved in ancient glossaries, in particular by Hesychius, only three dozen can be considered "Thracian". However, Indo-European scholars have pointed out that "even the notion that what the ancients called "Thracian" was a single entity is unproven." The table below lists potential from Indo-European languages, but most of them have not found general acceptance within Indo-European scholarship. Not all lexical items in Thracian are assumed to be from the Proto-Indo-European language, some non-IE lexical items in Thracian are to be expected.
| + ! Word !! Meaning!! Attested by !! Cognates !! Notes | ||||
| ἄσα (asa) | colt's foot (Bessi) | Dioskurides | Lit. dial. asỹs 'horse-tail, Equisetum', Latv. aši, ašas 'horse-tail, sedge, rush' | The etymology of both Baltic words is unclear and extra-Baltic cognates have yet to be established. |
| βόλινθος (bólinthos) | aurochs, European bison | Aristotle | Proto-Slavic ("ox"). Per Beekes, Pre-Greek. | See also Gk. βοῦς 'cow', but Latv. govs ' id ' both < PIE *gwṓws. Proto-Slavic *vòlъ has no extra-Slavic cognates. |
| βρία (bría) | unfortified village | Hesychius, compare the Toponyms Πολτυμβρία, Σηλυ(μ)μβρία, and Βρέα in Thrace. | Compared to Greek ῥίον (ríon; "peak, foothills") and Tocharian A ri, B riye ("town") as if < *urih₁-. Alternatively, compare Proto-Celtic ("hill"). | Gk ῥίον has no clear etymology. The Toch lemmata may be related. |
| βρίζα (bríza) | rye | Galen | Perhaps of Eastern origin, compare Greek ὄρυζα, Sanskrit vrīhí- ("rice"). | The 'rice' words in Gk and IIr are . The Gk word may be borrowed from an Eastern Iranian language. |
| βρυνχός (brynkhós) | kitharaGeorgiev, Vladimir I.. "Thrakisch und Dakisch". Band 29/2. Teilband Sprache und Literatur (Sprachen und Schriften Forts.), edited by Wolfgang Haase, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 1983. p. 1152. | Compared with Slavic *bręčati "to ring". | The Proto-Slavic lemma is reconstructed based exclusively on Serbo-Croatian brecati 'twang, be insolent' and consequently may not even be reconstructable to its own proto-language as there are no external or internal comparanda. It may be onomatopoetic in nature. Furthermore, there is a grave issue with the inscription, as Gk /ŋ/ is written with a gamma before a velar, i.e., this word should be written βρυγχός, which it is not. | |
| βρῦτος (brŷtos) | beer of barley | many | Slavic "vriti" (to boil), Germanic ("broth"), Old Irish bruth ("glow"), Latin dē-frŭtum ("must boiled down"). | |
| dinupula, si/nupyla | wild melon | Pseudoapuleus | Lithuanian šùnobuolas, lit. ("dog's apple"), or with Slavic ("melon"). Per Vladimir Georgiev, derived from *kun-ābōlo- or *kun-ābulo- 'hound's apple'. | Proto-Slavic *dyña (from earlier *kъdyña is most likely borrowed from Gk. κῠδώνῐον via Lat. cydōnia. |
| γέντον (génton) | meat | Herodian., Suid., Hesych | Possibly descended from IE *gʷʰn̥tó- 'strike, kill', cf. Sanskrit hatá- 'hit, killed' | The adjective *gʷʰn̥tós in the zero-grade has an *-s in the nom.sg., whereas in Thracian the word ends in a nasal, which is a serious issue that requires morphological remodelling in Thracian for it to be posited as the starting point for Thracian γέντον. Furthermore, the e-grade vowel of the Thracian potential avatar remains to be explained as well if from an original PIE *gʷʰn̥tós. |
| καλαμίνδαρ (kalamíndar) | plane-tree (Edoni) | Hesych. | ||
| κη̃μος (kêmos) | a kind of fruit with follicle | Phot. Lex. | ||
| κτίσται (ktístai) | Ctistae | Strabo | ||
| midne (in a Latin inscription, thus not written with Gk alphabet) | village | inscription from Rome | Latvian mītne 'a place of stay', Avestan maēϑana- 'dwelling' | |
| Πολτυμ(βρία) (poltym-bría) | board fence, a board tower | Old English speld 'wood, log' | The OE lemma is poorly understood and extra-Germanic cognates are few and far between. OE speld may have descended from a PIE root *(s)pley- which is poorly attested and does not seem to be a formal match to the Thracian term. | |
| ῥομφαία (Rhomphaia) | broadsword | Compared with Latin rumpō ("to rupture"), Slavic: Russian разрубать, Polish rąbać ("to hack", "to chop", "to slash"), Polish rębajło ("eager swordsman"), Serbo-Croatian rmpalija ("bruiser") | The Slavic terms here must come from a medial *-bh-, whereas Lat. rumpō 'I break' must descend from a medial *-p- and therefore those words aren't even cognate with each other, let alone with the Thracian term. | |
| σκάλμη (skálmē) | knife, sword | Soph. y Pollux, Marcus Anton., Hesych., Phot. L | Albanian ("sword"), Old Norse skolmr 'cleft' | The Albanian term is likely a secondary innovation. ON skolmr is unclear and has no extra-Germanic cognates; it is unlikely to be related to the Thracian term. |
| σκάρκη (skárkē) | a silver coin | Hesych., Phot. Lex. | ||
| σπίνος (spínos) | 'a kind of stone, which blazes when water touches it' (i.e. 'lime') | Arist. | PIE *k̑witn̥os 'white, whitish', Greek τίτανος (Attic) and κίττανος (Doric) 'gypsum, chalk, lime'. Although from the same PIE root, Albanian shpâ(ni) 'lime, tartar' and Greek σπίνος 'lime' derive from a secondary origin as they were probably borrowed from Thracian due to phonetic reasons pp. 159–161. | |
| τορέλλη (toréllē) | a refrain of lament mourn song | Hesych. | ||
| ζαλμός (zalmós) | animal hide | Porphyr. | Per Georgiev, derived from *kolmo-s. Related to Gothic hilms, German Helm and Old Iranian sárman 'protection'. | Thracian initial ζ- can either be related to PIE *ḱ (as in these 'cognates' and several below) or to *ǵh-/*gh- as in the following entry, but not both. There does not exist an OIr word sárman, but a word śárman does exist in Sanskrit. However, Sanskrit ś- must go back to a PIE *ḱ-, not *k- as Georgiev states. |
| ζειρά (zeira) | long robe worn by Arabs and Thracians | Hdt., Xen., Hesych. | Per Georgiev, related to Greek χείρ (kheir) and Phrygian ζειρ (zeir) 'hand'. | See above. The meaning of Phrygian ζειρα(ι) is unknown, not 'hand' as Georgiev believes.Klein et al., edd. (2018) HCHL:1820, chapter XVI.101 'Phrygian' by Ligorio and Lubotsky. |
| ζελᾶ (zelâ), also ζῆλα (zêla), ζηλᾱς (zelās) | wine | many | Compared with Greek χάλις (khális; "unblended wine") and κάλιθος (kálithos; "wine") | See above. |
| ζετραία (zetraía) | pot | Pollux | Per Georgiev, related to Greek χύτρα (khútra) 'pot'. | See above. |
| zibythides | the noble, most holy one | Hesych. | Lith. žibùtė ("shining") |
Dimitar Dechev (Germanised as D. Detschew) separates the words as follows:
The word mezenai is interpreted to mean 'Horseman', and a cognate to Illyrian Menzanas (as in "Juppiter/Jove Menzanas" 'Juppiter of the foals' or 'Juppiter on a horse'); Accessed 22 July 2024. Albanian mëz 'foal'; Romanian mînz 'colt, foal'; Latin language mannus 'small horse, pony';Kaluzkaja, Irina. "Thracian-Illyrian language parallels: Thrac. MEZENAI – Illyr. Menzanas". In: Thracian World at Crossroad of Civilizations – Proceedings of 7th International Congress of Thracology. Bucharest: 1996. pp. 372–373.Francisco Marcos-Marin. "Etymology and Semantics: Theoretical Considerations apropos of an Analysis of the Etymological Problem of Spanish mañero, mañeria." In: Historical Semantics—Historical Word-Formation. de Gruyter, 1985. p. 381. Gaulish language manduos 'pony' (as in tribe name ViromanduiBalmori, C. Hernando. " Notes on the etymology of sp. 'perro'". In: Etudes Celtiques
There is a fringe belief that Thraco-Dacian forms a branch of Indo-European along with Baltic languages,Holst (2009):66. but a Balto-Slavic linguistic unity is so overwhelmingly accepted by the Indo-European linguistic community that this hypothesis does not pass muster.
Another author believes that the interior of Thrace was never Romanized or Hellenized (Trever, 1939).Trever, Albert Augustus. History of Ancient Civilization. Harcourt, Brace. p. 571 This was followed also by Slavonization. According to Weithmann (1978) when the Slavs migrated, they encountered only a very superficially Romanized Thracian and Dacian population, which had not strongly identified itself with Imperial Rome, while Greek and Roman populations (mostly soldiers, officials, merchants) abandoned the land or were killed.Michael W. Weithmann, Die slawische Bevölkerung auf der griechischen Halbinsel (Munich 1978) Because Pulpudeva survived as Plovdiv in Slavic languages, not under Philippopolis, some authors suggest that Thracian was not completely obliterated in the 7th century.
/ref> 'men who own ponies').Georgiev, Vladimir I.. "Thrakisch und Dakisch". Band 29/2. Teilband Sprache und Literatur (Sprachen und Schriften Forts.), edited by Wolfgang Haase, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 1983. p. 1161.
Classification
Due to a paucity of evidence required to establish a linguistic connection, the Thracian language, in modern linguistic textbooks, is usually treated either as its own branch of Indo-European, or is grouped with Dacian, together forming a Daco-Thracian branch of IE. Older textbooks often grouped it also with Illyrian or Phrygian. The belief that Thracian was close to Phrygian is no longer popular and has mostly been discarded.See C. Brixhe – Ancient languages of Asia Minor, Cambridge University Press, 2008
We will dismiss, at least temporarily, the idea of a Thraco-Phrygian unity. Thraco-Dacian (or Thracian and Daco-Mysian) seems to belong to the eastern (satem) group of Indo-European languages and its (their) phonetic system is far less conservative than that of Phrygian (see Brixhe and Panayotou 1994, §§ 3ff.)
Fate of the Thracians and their language
According to the 19th-century Greek educator Vlasios Skordelis, when Thracians were subjugated by Alexander the Great they finally assimilated to Greek culture and became as Greek as Spartans and Athenians, although he considered the Thracian language as a form of Greek. (2015). 9789004290365, BRILL. ISBN 9789004290365 According to Crampton (1997) most Thracians were eventually Hellenized or Romanized, with the last remnants surviving in remote areas until the 5th century.R.J. Crampton (1997). 052156719X, Cambridge University Press. 052156719X According to Marinov (2015) the Thracians were likely completely Romanized and Hellenized after the last contemporary references to them of the 6th century. (2015). 9789004290365, BRILL. ISBN 9789004290365
See also
Footnotes
General references
Further reading
Inscriptions
Onomastics
Lexicon
Toponymy and hydronymy
External links
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