Iberian language

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Iberian
Period 7. – 1. Century BC Chr

Formerly spoken in

Iberian Peninsula
Language codes
ISO 639-3

xib

The Iberian language was spoken in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula . The still not very far from the people researched the Iberians spoken Iberian, which is to be classified as pre-Hispanic, was v as in the period between the 7th and 1st century. Until it was superseded by the Latin language ( Indo-European language ) spoken by the Romans .

Language families on the Iberian Peninsula before the Roman conquest.

Spread of the Iberian language

Language map of the Iberian Peninsula during the Late Iron Age ( Latène Age )
Map of the late Iron Age or Latène Age on the Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian language was spoken in the area of ​​the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The northernmost extension of the language was bounded by what is now the French river Hérault . Important relics of the language were found in Ensérune , in an oppidum , a city based on the Celtic pattern, which was interwoven with Iberian and Celtic elements. The southern border was drawn through Porcuna , in what is now southern Spain , where elaborate equestrian statuettes were found. The distribution in the interior of the peninsula is not further clarified, but it is believed that the Iberian languages ​​were used up to the Ebro .

Hypotheses on origin

The Iberian language seems to be an isolated language . However, there are a number of hypotheses that are used to explain the origin of this language:

  • North Africa : The proponents of this hypothesis assume that the Iberian culture originates from northern Africa and that the language in this area dates back to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. Was spoken of. The linguist Antonio Tovar combines the Iberian language with the Berber languages .
  • Urnfield culture (Rodríguez Ramos 2003): According to this hypothesis, a relationship between the Iberian, the Basque and the Aquitaine is assumed. One sees the Iberian language as a variant of the language family of the Urnfield culture.
  • Catalonia (Velaza 2006): Iberian could have its roots in northern Catalonia, as this is where ( Ullastret ) the oldest Iberian inscriptions were found.

font

Main article: Old Hispanic scripts
Lead plate from Ullastret
Lead plate from La Bastida de les Alcuses ( Mogente ). The southeast Iberian script is used here.
Lead plate from la Serreta in the Graeco-Iberian alphabet .
Lead plate from Castellet de Bernabè, Valencia

The oldest inscription written using the Iberian script dates back to the 5th or 4th century BC. The youngest was in the 1st century BC. Or at the beginning of the 1st century AD. To date, around two thousand inscriptions have been discovered that were written in this script. Most of these inscriptions are short texts that can be found on ceramic as a background and express the owner of the ceramic piece; consequently, many names can be found in these texts. Longer texts were written on lead plates; the longest text found so far comes from Yátova , from the Comunidad Autónoma Valencia and comprises a total of over six hundred characters.

There are a total of three known Iberian scripts:

Northeast Iberian script

The North Iberian script is also known for short as the Iberian script because, according to Untermann from 1990, 95 percent of all texts found so far that were written in Iberian scripts were written with the North Iberian alphabet. As the name suggests, this writing was found almost exclusively on finds from the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, mostly between the coast of Languedoc-Roussillon and what is now the Spanish city of Alicante . However, it was also used in the Ebro Valley.

The Northeast Iberian script has been almost completely deciphered.

Southeast Iberian script

The southeastern Iberian script is, like the northeastern one, a semisyllabic script, but is more similar to the Tartessian script that was used in what is now southern Portugal . In Spain, the script was used in the city triangle of Badajoz , Seville and Cordoba . The southeast script was often discovered in Murcia , Andalusia , Valencia , Albacete and Alicante .

This writing has not yet been fully deciphered.

Graeco-Iberian alphabet

The Graeco-Iberian script is a direct adaptation from the Ionic variant of the Greek alphabet and has been adapted to the Iberian script. The inscriptions using this writing system were found mainly in Alicante or Murcia .

description

Today's knowledge of the Iberian language

Very little is known for certain about the Iberian language. Linguists have already completed the phase of gathering information from the found texts and are now starting to research the grammatical structure of this language.

The previous hypotheses on this language are therefore still not confirmed, and linguists mainly obtained a large part of the inspiration for the theses from the findings of bilingual texts.

Phonology

Vowels

Iberian has the five vowels / a, e, i, o, u /, / a, e, i / appear more often than / o, u /. There is evidence of the existence of allophones ; one suspects that the sound (<ḿ>) could be such a thing. There seems to have been no distinction between long and short vowels, despite a different representation by Greek authors.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs always consist of a combination of vowels and vowels , e.g. B. / ai / (śaitabi), / ei / (neitin) and / au / (lauŕ). / Ui / is also used.

Consonants

  • Vibrants : There are the vibrants r and ŕ . There is no consensus among linguists about the differences between these vibrants. Correa suggested in 1994 that ŕ is a voiced alveolar tap and r is a connecting voiced alveolar vibrant . Ten years later, Rodriguez Ramos preferred that r be a retroflex , following Ballester's 2001 theory that r was a uvual fricative. Four years later, however, Ballester changed his mind and suggested that r was a voiced alveolar tap and that ŕ was the voiced alveolar vibrant . Both r and ŕ appear at the beginning of the word.
  • Lateral : The lateral l is usually interpreted as a [ l ]. This sound is rarely found at the end of a word; there are alternations with ŕ such that a complementary distribution is possible: aŕikal-er ~ aŕikaŕ-bi .

morphology

A large number of affixes are known in the Iberian language that were used specifically in names. In the Iberian those words were probably more of a post position and were agglutinierend (or as clitics ) nichtdeklinierend used. Here is a smaller list of affixes that are well known so far:

  • -ar : This form appeared in use with the given name to indicate possession.
  • -en : This post position was also used for possessive purposes. In Basque one finds -en or -aren in the genitive forms.
  • -ka : This post position seems to indicate the recipient of a gift.
  • -te : Presumably indicates the doer or is used in the ablative form.
  • -sken : Found on coins and giving the name of a city or people to indicate ownership, or it was used in the plural genitive.
  • -k : was used to clarify the plural; -k is also a plural marker in Basque.

Relationship between Iberian and Basque

Whether Basque and Iberian are two languages ​​that belong to the same family is still a contentious question. Many experts on the Iberian language suggest that there is a relationship between Iberian and Aquitaine, a likely precursor language to Basque. However, there is not enough evidence for such a relationship. The hypothesis that there was language contact is also not confirmed. The lexical correspondences in both languages ​​could have arisen from language contact, the grammatical overlaps could also indicate a linguistic union. The similarities between Old Spanish and Basque are comparable to this phenomenon. The languages ​​do not belong to the same language family, but some share some grammatical features. However, several scientific studies still have to follow in order to prove - or refute - the relationship between the two languages.

From a historical perspective, the first characteristics between Iberian and Basque were the following two:

  • The suffixes -sken / -ken on Iberian coins (which was similar to the genitive plural form on other ancient coins) with the Basque plural -k and the genitive -en ;
  • Iberian cities that contained the particles ili (such as iliberri ). This particle is now compared to the Basque meaning for city ( hiri ).

Although other particles (such as eban ; ars ; -ka ; -te among others) have also been suggested, the meaning of these particles in Iberian remains controversial. The main arguments that confirm a kinship between Iberian and Basque are mentioned here:

  • Phonetic: Proto-Basque phonology, first proposed by Michelena, seems to be in much agreement with what is known about Iberian phonology today. In particular, the absence of the sound m seems to be significant for both languages.
  • Names: Aquitaine-Latin inscriptions contain names of people and deities that can be compared with modern Basque words, but grammatical and lexical similarities with Iberian are also visible.
  • On Iberian tombstones one can often find the inscription a Grabe take , another variant is aŕe teike , which is to be compared with the Latin words hic situs est (here is), as Hübner suspects. Schuchardt compared these Iberian words in 1907 to the Basque meaning, which is (h) ara dago .
  • The Iberian word ekiar (he made) is possibly related to the Basque word ekiar (to make).
  • The Iberian word śalir , which means coin, money or value, is also compared to the Basque word sari , which is translated similarly.

Orduña (2005) and Ferrer i Jané (2007) found parallels in the number words in Iberian and Basque. However, since the exact value of the Iberian numerals is not known with certainty, the comparison is considered controversial.

Personal names

Thanks to Ascoli's lead plate, which has Latin inscriptions , many Iberian given names are known. The Ascoli lead plate marked the names of Iberian cavalrymen who were in the service of the Roman army . Iberian first names are usually made up of two elements. Both elements usually consisted of two syllables each , as Untermann wrote in 1998. The element iltiŕ can be found in the following names, for example: iltiŕaŕker , iltiŕbaś , iltiŕtikeŕ , tursiltiŕ , baiseiltiŕ or bekoniltiŕ . The following is a list of some such items or suggested items:

abaŕ, aibe, aile, ain, aitu, aiun, aker, albe, aloŕ, an, anaŕ, aŕbi, aŕki, aŕs, asai, aster, ata, atin, atun, aunin, auŕ, austin, baiser, balaŕ, balke, bartaś, baś, bastok, bekon, belauŕ, beleś, bels, bene, beŕ, beri, beŕon, betan, betin, bikir, bilos, bin, bir, bitu, biuŕ, bolai, boŕ, boś, boton, ekes, ekaŕ, eler, ena, esto, eten, eter, iar, iaun, ibeś, ibeis, ike, ikoŕ, iltiŕ, iltur, inte, iskeŕ, istan, iunstir, iur, kaisur, kakeŕ, Kaltuŕ, kani, kaŕes, kaŕko, katu, keŕe, kibaś, kine, kitaŕ, kon, koŕo, koŕś, kuleś, kurtar, lako, lauŕ, leis, lor, lusban, nalbe, neitin, neŕse, nes, niś, nios, oŕtin, sakaŕ, sakin, saltu, śani, śar, seken, selki, sike, sili, sine, sir, situ, soket, sor, sosin, suise, taker, talsku, tan, tanek, taneś, taŕ, tarban, taŕtin, taś, tautin, teita, tekeŕ, tibaś, tikeŕ, tikirs, tikis, tileis, tolor, tuitui, tumar, tuŕś, turkir, tortin, ulti, unin, uŕke, ustain, ḿbaŕ, nḿkei .

Some names have a simpler structure. In the inscriptions on the lead plate of Ascoli one finds the names beles , ager-do and bivr-no , in that of Ullastret neitin and lauŕ-to , bartas-ko and śani-ko in other scripts that contain Iberian names.

Iberian names contain recurring morphological patterns of the components: eter / eten / ete in the same variation as iltur / iltun / iltu , kere / keres like lako / lakos or alos / alor / alo and bikis / bikir / biki .

Some Iberian naming conventions find similarities in Aquitaine and the Basque Country . This has been described by experts like Mitxelena as a "name basin" . However, this connection remains purely hypothetical, with a few exceptions. But some linguists consider an ancient linguistic union to be entirely possible.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ General information on the Iberian language, with alphabet and distribution