Siculian
| Siculian | |
|---|---|
| Sicel | |
| Region | Sicily |
| Ethnicity | Sicels |
| Era | attested late 6th century to 4th century BCE[1][2] |
Indo-European
| |
Siculian (or Sicel) is an extinct Indo-European language spoken in central and eastern Sicily by the Sicels. It is attested in fewer than thirty inscriptions in eastern Sicily from the late 6th century to 4th century BCE, and in around twenty-five glosses from ancient writers.[1]
Classification
Ancient sources state that
Due to its limited attestation, it is difficult to determine much about this language beyond that it was Indo-European.
Some inscriptions may reveal Italic elements, such as geped ('had'), which is comparable to the
If Siculian is indeed classified as Italic, it would diverge from all its relatives in showing voiced reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirates in initial position, in contrast to the sound changes f < *dʰ, *bʰ and h- < *gʰ/*g̑ʰ, attested in Latin, Sabellic, and Venetic.[4]
Attestations
They used the Greek alphabet, along with a native one based upon Western Greek scripts, probably the Euboic-Chalkidic version.[1] According to scholar Markus Hartmann, "of the fewer than thirty inscriptions in total, only six appear to be at least in part intelligible and to be Siculian (i.e., most certainly neither Greek nor belonging to some other Italic or pre-Italic language)."[6]
ΝΕΝΔΑΣ Π̣Υ̣[----]Σ ΤΕΒΕΓ ΠΡΑΑΡΕΙ ΕΝ ΒΟ[.]ΡΕΝΑΙ ϜΙΔΕ ΠΑΓΟΣΤΙΚΕ ΑΙΤΕ[--]ΛΥΒΕ
nendas ˌ puṛẹṇọṣ ˌ tebeg ˌ praarei ˌ en ˌ bo?renai ˌ vide ˌ pagostike ˌ aite?ṇ?ụbe.
tamuraabesakedqoiaves ˌ eurumakes ˌ agepipokedḷutimbe levopomanatesemaidarnakei- buṛeitaṃomịaetiurela
— Amphora from Montagna di Marzo (late 6th–early 5th century BCE)[6]
ΙΑΜ ΑΚΑΡΑΜ ΕΠΟΠΑΣ ΚΑΑΓΙΙΕΣ ΓΕΠΕΔ ΤΟΥΤΟ FΕΡΕΓΑΙ ΕΣΗΕΙΚΑΔ[.] ΑΛΑ
iamˌakaramˌe?p??asˌkaag?esˌgẹpẹḍ2te?toˌveregai- es? ˌ eka ˌ doara[ịẹạḍ]
nunus ˌ teṇti ˌ mím ˌ arustainam ˌ íemitom ˌ esti ˌ durom ˌ nanepos ˌ durom ˌ íemitom ˌ esti ˌ velíom ˌ ned ˌ emponitantom ˌ eredes ˌ vịino ˌ brtome
Some inscriptions, written in Sicilian Doric Greek and displaying lexical items that appear to match Latin, are also suspected to be of Siculian origin, such as lítra (comparable to Latin lībra, 'pound') and kúbiton (paralleling Latin cubitum, 'elbow').[4]
References
- ^ a b c Hartmann 2017, p. 1854.
- the Linguist List
- ^ de Simone 1999, p. 500; de Simone 2006, p. 690; Hartmann 2017, p. 1854.
- ^ a b c d Weiss 2022, pp. 115–116.
- ^
- Palmer 1988, pp. 43–45
- Agostiniani 1992, p. 538
- Tribulato 2012, p. 167
- Hartmann 2017, p. 1854
- ^ a b c d e Hartmann 2017, p. 1855.
- ^ "Inscribed Stele inscribed in the Sikel language". Voci di Pietra. Castello Ursino Civic Museum.
- OCLC 1243743745.
Bibliography
- Agostiniani, Luciano (1992). "Les parlers indigènes de la Sicile prégrecque". Lalies. 11: 125–157. ISSN 0750-9170.
- ISSN 0392-095X.
- ISBN 978-8876422102.
- Hartmann, Markus (2017). "Siculian". In Klein, Jared; Joseph, Brian; Fritz, Matthias (eds.). Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. Vol. 3. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 1854–1857. S2CID 242076323.
- ISBN 978-0-8061-2136-9.
- Tribulato, Olga (2012). Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-85193-0.
- Weiss, Michael (2022). "Italic". In Olander, Thomas (ed.). The Indo-European Language Family. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-49979-8.
Further reading
- Agostiniani, Luciano (2012). "Alfabetizzazione della Sicilia pregreca". Aristonothos. Rivista di Studi sul Mediterraneo Antico (4): 139–164. ISSN 2385-2895.
- Agostiniani, Luciano; Cordano, Federica (2002). "L'ambiente siculo" [The Sicilian Environment]. In Cordano, Federica; Di Salvatore, Massimo (eds.). Il Guerriero di Castiglione di Ragusa: Greci e Siculi nella Sicilia Sud-orientale: atti del Seminario, Milano, 15 maggio 2000 [The Warrior of Castiglione di Ragusa: Greeks and Sicilians in south-eastern Sicily: proceedings of the Seminary, Milan, 15 May 2000]. Hesperìa (in Italian). Vol. 16. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. pp. 77–89. ISBN 88-8265-163-0.
- Ambrosini, Riccardo. 1984. Lingue nelle Sicilia pregreca. In Adriana Quattordio Moreschini (ed.), Tre millenni di storia linguistica della Sicilia, 13–36. Pisa: Giardini.
- Campanile, Enrico. 1969. Note sulle glosse sicule e sui rapporti linguistici fra siculo e latino. In Studia Classica et Orientalia Antonino Pagliaro oblata. Vol. 1, 293–322. Rome: Herder
- Dell'Oro, Francesca (2017). "Une Nouvelle Attestation du Substrat « sicule » en Sicile ?: Quelques Réflexions à Propos de la Légende Méconnue d'une Monnaie d'Himère" [A New Attestation of the 'Siculian' Substrate in Sicily?: Some Thoughts on the Unrecognized Legend of a Himeran Coin]. Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics. 130: 5–16. JSTOR 26532658.
- Martzloff, Vincent (2011). "Variation linguistique et exégèse paléo-italique. L'idiome sicule de Montagna di Marzo" [Linguistic variation and Paleo-Italic exegesis. The Sicilian idiom of Montagna di Marzo]. In van Heems, Gilles (ed.). La variation linguistique dans les langues de l'Italie préromaine: Actes du IVe Séminaire sur les langues de l'Italie préromaine organisé à l'Université Lumière-Lyon 2 et la Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, 12 mars 2009 [Linguistic variation in the languages of pre-Roman Italy: Proceedings of the 4th Seminar on the languages of pre-Roman Italy organized at the Université Lumière-Lyon 2 and the Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, March 12, 2009]. Série philologique. Vol. 45. Lyon, France: Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée. pp. 93–130. ISBN 978-2-35668-021-1.
- Martzloff, Vincent (2017). "Retour sur l'inscription sicule de Montagna di Marzo" [Return to the Sicilian inscription of Montagna di Marzo]. In Ancillotti, Augusto; Calderini, Alberto; Massarelli, Riccardo (eds.). Forme e strutture della religione nell'Italia mediana antica: III Convegno Internazionale dell'Istituto di Ricerche e Documentazione sugli antichi umbri 21–25 settembre 2011 [Forms and Structures of Religion in Ancient Central Italy: 3rd International Conference of the Institute of Research and Documentation on Ancient Umbrians 21–25 September 2011]. Studia Archaeologica. Vol. 215. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. pp. 491–516. ISBN 978-88-913-0488-9.
- Poccetti, Paolo. 2012. Language relations in Sicily. In Olga Tribulato (ed.), Language and linguistic contact in ancient Sicily, 49–94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Prag, Jonathan (2020). "The Indigenous Languages of Sicily". Palaeohispanica (20): 531–551. S2CID 230709663.
- Willi, Andreas. 2008. Sikelismos. Sprache, Literatur und Gesellschaft im griechischen Sizilien (8.–5. Jh. v. Chr.). Basel: Schwabe.