Thracian language

'''Thracian language''' was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times by the Thracians.

Sources

As an extinct language that has no literature left, there's little known about it, but 21 Thracian words can be found cited in ancient texts http://members.tripod.com/~Groznijat/thrac/thrac_3.html. In addition there are many probable words extracted from names, toponyms, and hydronyms mentioned in ancient sources. A number of possible Thracian words are found in inscriptions (most of them written with Greek script) on buildings, coins, and other artifacts.

Classification

The Thracian language is generally considered to have belonged to the Satem group of Indo-European languages. Various relationships with other Indo-European languages have been proposed, including with the extinct Dacian language (which is generally considered a northern dialect of Thracian) or the extinct Phrygian language of Anatolia. The Phrygians may have been Thracians that migrated southeast into Asia Minor. These connections are hard to prove, as all these languages have long been extinct and only a small number of words from each language are known.

Connections to Albanian

The older models claimed that Thracian may be related to the Albanian language, which is widely considered to be related to the extinct Illyrian languages that neighbored the Thracians in ancient times, or the Armenian language, but these links are difficult to prove because of the significant changes in Albanian and Armenian since ancient times.

Connections to Baltic and Slavic

In the 1950's and 1960's, a number of linguists began to connect the Thracian language to the Baltic group of languages, sometimes controversially classed together with the Slavic languages as the Balto-Slavic group. The number of the Thraco-Baltic cognates from the conjectured Thracian lexical group is sizable. This has led a notable linguist to even suggest that Thracian was a geo-variant of the Slavic group http://www.continuitas.com/interdisciplinary.pdf. The non-Indo-European or peri-Indo-European Burushaski language, which allegedly shares some similarity with Balto-Slavic, is claimed to also have common words with Thracian.

Connections to Centum

More recently a Romanian linguist and thracologist has proposed that the Thracian (as well as the Dacian) language was a Centum language in its earlier period, and developed satem features over time http://soltdm.tripod.com/limbimod/romana/grecrom.htm. One of the arguments for this idea is that there are many cognates between Thracian and Ancient Greek, including two definite cognates out of the 21 cited Thracian words and many more from the conjectured group. However, some of these cognates can be explained by the Greek influence over the area. Yet there are substratum words in the Romanian language that are cited as evidence of the genetic relationship of the Thracian language to Ancient Greek and thus to Centum. Some have also proposed that Thracian (and Dacian) may have been close to Latin , yet this idea is not popular among many. Yet if Thracian was Centum, then such a relation is possibile.

Geographic distribution

Thracian was spoken in the territory of today's Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Moldova, parts of Serbia and Hungary, and Northern Greece.

Vocabulary

The most reliable Thracian words are the words which have been explicitly cited and described as Thracian by the ancient authors. The total number of such words is 21. Elements appearing in typical Thracian two-component geographical names (for example, Poltymbria) are another source for the reconstructed vocabulary. The Thracian vocabulary includes as well many more words whose meanings are conjectured, speculative, or disputed. Indeed, their status as actual words (as opposed to parts of words) is speculative in many cases. Most of the words are definitely of Indo-European origin. 5 of the 21 cited Thracian words have been linked to Baltic words, and 1 of the 21 cited words has been linked to a Romanian word . Many of the words that are of conjectured meaning have been linked to Baltic words.

External links

Of the following links, four of them present the work chiefly of the (late) Vladimir Georgiev and Ivan Duridanov, two Bulgarian linguists who connect Thracian to the Balto-Slavic group. The last presents the Thracian-Centum view.

• The 21 cited Thracian words
• The Language of the Thracians, an essay
• The Thracian words, including many hypothetical words
• The place of Thracian among IE languages according to this source
• Mario Alinei on Thracian language
• Thracian-Centum view
• [http://homepage.mac.com/sorin_paliga/FileSharing2.html Go to Ebooks, then Lexica, then LexEtym_Ro.zip for Romanian cognate for Brynchos

Category:Extinct languages Category:Indo-European languages Category:Thracians de:Thrakische Sprache

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