Ligurian (ancient language)
Ligurian | |
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Native to | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | xlg |
xlg | |
Glottolog | anci1248 |
The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and current south-eastern France known as the Ligures.
Very little is known about ancient Ligurian; the lack of inscriptions and the unknown origin of the Ligurian people prevent its certain linguistic classification as a
Ancient sources regarding the Ligurians
The question of the Ligurians' ethnolinguistic origins and identity has remained unresolved. They may have: been a
Strabo wrote of the region around the Alps: "many tribes (éthnê) occupy these mountains, all Celtic (Keltikà) except the Ligurians; but while these Ligurians belong to a different people (hetero-ethneis), still they are similar to the Celts in their modes of life (bíois)." He also mentioned that earlier (Greek) sources referred to the Salyes (Latin Salluvii) – then the western neighbours of the Ligures – as the Ligyes, and to their territory as Ligystike (iv. p. 203). Scholars of the classical era usually considered the Salyes to have originated as either: a hybrid of Gauls and Ligures, or the result of the westernmost Ligurians coming under the influence of a Celtic elite.
Even in antiquity, because of the strong similarities of the Ligures' language and culture to that Celts, some Greek scholars referred to them as Κελτολίγυες Keltolígues (Celto-Ligurians).[6]
Theories on the Ligurian language
Ligurian as a non-Celtic Indo-European language
French historian and philologist
Other linguists expanded on Jubainville's idea.
Ligurian as a Celtic or Italo-Celtic language
An identification of
Another possibility may be inferred from a second point made by Delamarre:[14] that (according to Plutarch) in 102 BC, during the Battle of Aquae Sextiae, Ligurian troops fighting for the Roman Republic were facing the Ambrones – a Germanic tribe from Jutland – who began to shout "Ambrones!" as a battle cry. The Ligurians, who heard this as identical to an ancient alternate name for their own people (outôs kata genos onomazousi Ligues), returned the shout: "Ambrones!". No indisputable evidence has been found that the Ambrones of Jutland had partly-Celtic origins, and tribes in other parts of Europe also had similar names – suggesting that either the two ethnonyms were coincidental homophones, or that a more distant connection existed.
Ligurian as a Pre-Indo-European language
Scholars, such as Ernst Gamillscheg, Pia Laviosa Zambotti and Yakov Malkiel,[15][16] posit that ancient Ligurian was a pre-Indo-European language, with significant late Indo-European influence, especially Celtic (Gallic) and Italic (Latin), superimposed on the original language.
Their thesis is that the Ligurians were survivors of the ancient pre-Indo-European populations that had occupied Europe, at least from the fifth millennium BC.
A risk of circular logic has been pointed out – if it is believed that the Ligurians are non-Celtic or indeed pre-Indo-European, and if many place names and tribal names that classical authors state are Ligurian seem to be Celtic, it is incorrect to discard all the Celtic ones when collecting Ligurian words and to use this edited corpus to demonstrate that Ligurian is non-Celtic or non-Indo-European.[18]
See also
References
- the Linguist List
- ^ Kruta 1991, p. 54.
- ^ Kruta 1991, p. 55.
- ^ "Liguri". Enciclopedie on line. Treccani.it (in Italian). Rome: Treccani -Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. 2011.
Le documentazioni sulla lingua dei Liguri non ne permettono una classificazione linguistica certa (preindoeuropeo di tipo mediterraneo? Indoeuropeo di tipo celtico?).
- ^ "Ligurian language". Britannica.com. 2014-12-16. Retrieved 2015-08-29.
- ^ Baldi, Philip (2002). The Foundations of Latin. Walter de Gruyter. p. 112.
- ^ Herodotus (1920). A. D. Godley (ed.). The Histories. Translated by A. D. Godley. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Book 5, Chapter 9.
- ^ Jubainville, H. D'Arbois de (1889). Les Premiers Habitants de l'Europe d'après les Écrivains de l'Antiquité et les Travaux des Linguistes: Seconde Édition (in French). Paris: Ernest Thorin. V.II, Book II, Chapter 9, Sections 10, 11.
- ISBN 1-58811-379-5.
- ^ a b Henri Hubert, 2013 (1934), The Rise of the Celts. Abingdon, Oxfordshire, p. 162.
- ^ Barruol 1969.
- ^ Delamarre 2003, p. 177.
- ^ Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch
- ^ Plutarch. Caius Marius. Chapter 10, Sections 5-6.
- ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1950). Romanen und Basken (in German). Mainz & Wiesbaden: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz.
- JSTOR 4173021.
- ^ Laviosa Zambotti, Pia (1943). "La civiltà dei più antichi agricoltori liguri". Rivista di Studi Liguri (in Italian). 9 (2–3): 96–108.
- ^ Dyfed Lloyd Evans (2005–2011). "Celtic Gods: The Gaulish and Ligurian god, Vasio". Nemeton: The Sacred Grove. Archived from the original on May 18, 2013.
Sources
- Barruol, Guy (1969). Les peuples pré-romains du sud-est de la Gaule - Etude de géographie historique (in French) (2nd ed.). Paris.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (2nd ed.). Paris: Editions Errance. ISBN 2-87772-237-6.
- Kruta, Venceslas (1991). The Celts. Thames and Hudson.
- ISBN 9780674990555.