The Thracian language () is an extinct and
poorly attested language, spoken in ancient times in
Southeast Europe
Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (al ...
by the
Thracians
The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European languages, Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. ...
. The linguistic affinities of the Thracian language are
poorly understood, but it is generally agreed that it was an
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
language with
satem
Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An e ...
features.
A contemporary, neighboring language,
Dacian is usually regarded as closely related to Thracian. However, there is insufficient evidence with respect to either language to ascertain the nature of this relationship.
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
Saint Antoninus of Piacenza (or Placentia) (died 303 AD) is a patron saint of Piacenza in Italy. He is venerated as a saint and martyr in the Roman Catholic Church, with a feast day of 30 September.
The saint was said to have been martyred at ...
wrote in 570 that there was a monastery in the
Sinai
Sinai commonly refers to:
* Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God
Sinai may also refer to:
* Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...
, at which the monks spoke
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
,
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
,
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
, and
Bessian
The Bessi (; grc, Βῆσσοι, or , ) were a Thracian tribe that inhabited the upper valley of the Hebros and the lands between the Haemus and Rhodope mountain ranges in historical Thrace.
Geography
The exact geographic location of the B ...
– a Thracian dialect.
Other theories about Thracian remain controversial. A classification put forward by some linguists, such as
Harvey Mayer
Harvey, Harveys or Harvey's may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Harvey'' (play), a 1944 play by Mary Chase about a man befriended by an invisible anthropomorphic rabbit
* Harvey Awards ("Harveys"), one of the most important awards ...
, suggests that Thracian (and
Dacian) belonged to the
Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
* Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...
branch of Indo-European, or at least is closer to Baltic than any other Indo-European branch. 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.
Geographic distribution
The Thracian language or languages were spoken in what is now
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
,
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
,
North Macedonia
North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...
,
Northern Greece
Northern Greece ( el, Βόρεια Ελλάδα, Voreia Ellada) is used to refer to the northern parts of Greece, and can have various definitions.
Administrative regions of Greece
Administrative term
The term "Northern Greece" is widely used ...
,
European Turkey
East Thrace or Eastern Thrace ( tr, Doğu Trakya or simply ''Trakya''; el, Ανατολική Θράκη, ''Anatoliki Thraki''; bg, Източна Тракия, ''Iztochna Trakiya''), also known as Turkish Thrace or European Turkey, is the pa ...
and in parts of
Bithynia
Bithynia (; Koine Greek: , ''Bithynía'') was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), adjoining the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Pa ...
(North-Western Asiatic Turkey).
Modern-day Eastern
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
is usually considered by paleolinguists to have been a
Daco-Moesian language area.
Moesi
In Roman literature of the early 1st century CE, the Moesi ( or ; grc, Μοισοί, ''Moisoí'' or Μυσοί, ''Mysoí''; lat, Moesi or ''Moesae'') appear as a Paleo-Balkan people who lived in the region around the River Timok to the south ...
an (after
Vladimir Georgiev et al.) is grouped with the
Dacian language
Dacian is an extinct language, generally believed to be Indo-European, that was spoken in the Carpathian region in antiquity.
In the 1st century, it was probably the predominant language of the ancient regions of Dacia and Moesia and possib ...
.
Remnants of the Thracian language
![ThracianLanguageMap](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/ThracianLanguageMap.jpg)
Little is known for certain about the Thracian languages, since no phrase beyond a few words in length has been satisfactorily deciphered, and the sounder decipherments given for the shorter phrases may not be completely accurate. Some of the longer inscriptions may indeed be Thracian in origin but they may not reflect actual Thracian language sentences, but rather jumbles of names or magical formulas.
Enough Thracian lexical items have survived to show that Thracian was a member of the
Indo-European language family
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
and that it was a
satemized language by the time it is attested.
Besides the aforementioned inscriptions, Thracian is attested through
personal name
A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known ...
s,
toponyms
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
,
hydronym
A hydronym (from el, ὕδρω, , "water" and , , "name") is a type of toponym that designates a proper name of a body of water. Hydronyms include the proper names of rivers and streams, lakes and ponds, swamps and marshes, seas and oceans. As a ...
s,
phytonyms, divine names, etc. and by a small number of words cited in Ancient Greek texts as being specifically Thracian.
Other ancient Greek lexical items were not specifically identified as Thracian by the ancient Greeks but are hypothesized by paleolinguists as being or probably being of Thracian origin. Other lexical items are hypothesized on the basis of local anthroponyms, toponyms, hydronyms, oronyms, etc. mentioned in primary sources (see also
List of ancient cities in Thrace and Dacia
This is a list of ancient cities, towns, villages, and fortresses in and around Thrace and Dacia. A number of these settlements were Dacian and Thracian, but some were Celtic, Greek, Roman, Paeonian, or Persian.
A number of cities in Dacia and ...
,
List of Dacian plant names
This is a list of plant names in Dacian, surviving from ancient botanical works such as Dioscorides' ''De Materia Medica'' ( abb. MM) and Pseudo-Apuleius' ''Herbarius'' (abb. Herb.). Dacian plant names are one of the primary sources left to us ...
).
Below is a table showing both words cited as being Thracian in classical sources, and lexical elements that have been extracted by paleolinguists from Thracian anthroponyms, toponyms, etc. In this table the closest
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s are shown, with an emphasis on cognates in
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
,
Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
,
Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
* Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...
,
Slavic,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, and substratum and/or old-layer words in the
Eastern Romance languages
The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. Today, the group consists of the Daco-Romance subgroup, which comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-R ...
:
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
,
Aromanian, et cetera. See also the
List of reconstructed Dacian words
This article contains a list of reconstructed words of the ancient Dacian language. They have been restored by some linguists from attested Dacian place and personal names (toponyms and anthroponyms) and from words believed to be Dacian relics i ...
.
Significant cognates from any Indo-European language are listed. However, not all lexical items in Thracian are assumed to be from the
Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
, some non-IE lexical items in Thracian are to be expected.
There are 23 words mentioned by ancient sources considered explicitly of Thracian origin and known meaning.
An additional 180 Thracian words have been reconstructed.
The proposed Thracian words in the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
lexicon are not numerous. They include the ''parth-'' element in
Parthenon
The Parthenon (; grc, Παρθενών, , ; ell, Παρθενώνας, , ) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the fifth century BC. Its decorative sculptures are considere ...
; ''balios'' ("dappled"; < PIE ''*bhel-'', "to shine", Bul. ''bel/bial'' (бял) "white" or ''bljaskav'' 'bright, shiny';
Pokorny also cites Illyrian as a possible source, the non-Greek origin is argued on phonological grounds), ''bounos'', "hill, mound".
The
Thracian horseman
The Thracian horseman (also "Thracian Rider" or "Thracian Heros") is a recurring motif depicted in reliefs of the Hellenistic and Roman periods in the Balkans—mainly Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly and Moesia—roughly from the 3rd century BC to ...
hero was an important figure in Thracian religion, mythology, and culture. Depictions of the Thracian Horseman are found in numerous archaeological remains and artifacts from Thracian regions. From the Duvanlii ring and from cognates in numerous Indo-European languages, is seen to be a Thracian word for "horse", deriving from PIE ''*mend-''. Another Thracian word for "horse" is hypothesized, but it looks certain, there is no disagreement among Thracologists: , , ''asb-'' (and some other variants; < PIE ''*ekwo'
the Thracian showing a satem form similar to Sanskrit ''áśva-'', "horse",
Avestan
Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...
''aspa'', "horse", Ossetic ''jäfs'', Prussian ''aswinan'' ‘mare milk’, Lithuanian ''ašvíenis'' ‘stallion’, ašvà, dial. ešvà ‘mare’), from , , an inscription associated with the Thracian horseman. ''Ut-'' based on the PIE root word ''ud-'' (meaning "up") and based on several Thracic items, would have meant "upon", "up", and is theorized to have meant "On horse(back)", parallel to ancient Greek .
The early Indo-European languages had more than one word for
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...
; for example Latin had ''equus'' from PIE ''*ekwo-'' and ''mannus'' ("a pony") from another IE root, later receiving ''cabalus'' as a loanword.
In many cases in current
Thracology
Thracology ( bg, Тракология, Trakologiya; ro, Tracologie) is the scientific study of Ancient Thrace and Thracian antiquities and is a regional and thematic branch of the larger disciplines of ancient history and archaeology. A practition ...
, there is more than one etymology for a Thracian lexical item. For example, Thracian ''Diana Germetitha'' (''Diana'' is from Latin while the
epithet
An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...
''Germetitha'' is from Thracian) has two different proposed etymologies, "Diana of the warm bosom" (Olteanu; et al.?) or "Diana of the warm radiance" (Georgiev; et al.?). In other cases, etymologies for the Thracian lexical items may be sound, but some of the proposed cognates are not actually
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s, thus confusing the affinity of Thracian.
Inscriptions
The following are the longest inscriptions preserved. The remaining ones are mostly single words or names on vessels and other artifacts.
Ezerovo inscription
![Golden_ring_Ezerovo_mound_BG_Ancient_Thrace_period](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Golden_ring_Ezerovo_mound_BG_Ancient_Thrace_period.jpg)
Only four Thracian inscriptions of any length have been found. The first is a gold ring found in 1912 in the village of
Ezerovo (Plovdiv Province of
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
); the ring was dated to the 5th century BC. On the ring an inscription is found written in a Greek script and consisting of 8 lines, the eighth of which is located on the edge, the rim, of the rotating disk; it reads without any spaces between:
as Dimitar Dechev (Germanised as ''D. Detschew'') separates the words thus
i.e.
proposing the following translation:
:''I am Rolisteneas, a descendant of Nereneas; Tilezypta, an Arazian woman, delivered me to the ground''.
Kyolmen inscription
A second inscription, hitherto undeciphered, was found in 1965 near the village of
Kyolmen,
Varbitsa Municipality
Varbitsa Municipality ( bg, Община Върбица) is a municipality ('' obshtina'') in Shumen Province, Northeastern Bulgaria, located in the vicinity of the northern slopes of the Eastern Stara planina mountain to the area of the so-calle ...
, dating to the sixth century BC. Written in a Greek alphabet variant, it is possibly a tomb stele inscription similar to the Phrygian ones; Peter A. Dimitrov's transcription thereof is:
:ΙΛΑΣΝΛΕΤΕΔΝΛΕΔΝΕΝΙΔΑΚΑΤΡΟΣΟ
[Written from right to left.]
:ΕΒΑ·ΡΟΖΕΣΑΣΝΗΝΕΤΕΣΑΙΓΕΚΟΑ
[Written from left to right.]
:ΝΒΛΑΒΑΗΓΝ
i.e.
:ilasnletednlednenidakatroso
:eba·rozesasnēnetesaigekoa
:nblabaēgn
Duvanlii inscription
A third inscription is again on a ring, found in
Duvanlii,
Kaloyanovo Municipality
Kaloyanovo Municipality () is a municipality in the Plovdiv Province, central Bulgaria and covers an area of 347 km². As of 2006 it has 12,390 inhabitants. The center of the municipality is the village of Kaloyanovo (Plovdiv Province), Kaloya ...
, next to the left hand of a skeleton. It dates to the 5th century BC. The ring has the image of a
horseman with the inscription surrounding the image. It is only partly legible (16 out of the initial 21):
:ΗΥΖΙΗ.....ΔΕΛΕ / ΜΕΖΗΝΑΙ
i.e.
:ēuziē.....dele / mezēnai
The meaning of the inscription is 'Horseman Eusie protect!'
If this reading is correct, the Thracian word ''mezenai'' might be cognate to
Illyrian ''Menzanas'' (as in "Juppiter/Jove Menzanas" 'Juppiter of the foals' or 'Juppiter on a horse');
Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
''mëz'' 'foal';
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
''mînz'' 'colt, foal';
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''mannus'' 'small horse, pony';
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium ...
''manduos'' 'pony' (as in tribe name ''
Viromandui
The Viromanduī or Veromanduī (Gaulish: *''Uiromanduoi'') were a Belgic tribe dwelling in the modern Vermandois region (Picardy) during the Iron Age and Roman periods. During the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), they belonged to the Belgic coalition of ...
'' 'men who own ponies').
Classification
The Thracian language in 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.
No definite evidence has yet been found that demonstrates that Thracian or Daco-Thracian belonged on the same branch as Albanian or Baltic or Balto-Slavic or
Greco-Macedonian or Phrygian or any other IE branch. For this reason textbooks still treat Thracian as its own branch of Indo-European, or as a Daco-Thracian/Thraco-Dacian branch.
The generally accepted clades branched from the
Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
are, in alphabetical order, the
Proto-Albanian language
The Proto-Albanian language is the unattested language from which Albanian later developed. Albanian evolved from an ancient Paleo-Balkan language, traditionally thought to be Illyrian, or otherwise a totally unattested Balkan Indo-European ...
,
Proto-Anatolian language
Proto-Anatolian is the proto-language from which the ancient Anatolian languages emerged (i.e. Hittite and its closest relatives). As with almost all other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstruct ...
,
Proto-Armenian language
Proto-Armenian is the earlier, unattested stage of the Armenian language which has been reconstructed by linguists. As Armenian is the only known language of its branch of the Indo-European languages, the comparative method cannot be used to re ...
,
Proto-Balto-Slavic language
Proto-Balto-Slavic (PBS or PBSl) is a reconstructed hypothetical proto-language descending from Proto-Indo-European (PIE). From Proto-Balto-Slavic, the later Balto-Slavic languages are thought to have developed, composed of sub-branches Baltic ...
,
Proto-Celtic language
Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed through the compar ...
,
Proto-Germanic language
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
,
Proto-Greek language
The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, Aeol ...
,
Proto-Indo-Iranian language
Proto-Indo-Iranian, also Proto-Indo-Iranic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian/Indo-Iranic branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium B ...
,
Proto-Italic language
The Proto-Italic language is the ancestor of the Italic languages, most notably Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages. It is not directly attested in writing, but has been reconstructed to some degree through the comparative method. P ...
, and the
Proto-Tocharian language
Proto-Tocharian, also spelled Proto-Tokharian ( or ), is the reconstructed proto-language of the extinct Tocharian branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Tocharian is the unattested reconstructed ancestor of an Indo-European eponymous e ...
. Thracian, Dacian, Phrygian, Illyrian,
Venetic
Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language, usually classified into the Italic subgroup, that was spoken by the Veneti people in ancient times in northeast Italy (Veneto and Friuli) and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po Delta and ...
, and
Paeonian
In antiquity, Paeonia or Paionia ( grc, Παιονία, Paionía) was the land and kingdom of the Paeonians or Paionians ( grc, Παίονες, Paíones).
The exact original boundaries of Paeonia, like the early history of its inhabitants, a ...
are fragmentarily attested and cannot be reliably categorized.
Note: Asterisk indicates reconstructed IE sound. ''M'' is a cover symbol for the row of voiced stops (mediae), ''T'' for unvoiced stops (tenues) and ''TA'' for aspirated stops (tenues aspiratae). ∅ indicates
zero
0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation
Positional notation (or place-value notation, or positional numeral system) usually denotes the extension to any base of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system (or ...
, a sound that has been
lost
Lost may refer to getting lost, or to:
Geography
*Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland
* Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US
History
*Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...
.
Thraco-Dacian has been hypothesized as forming a branch of Indo-European along with
Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
* Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...
.
For a large proportion of the 300 Thracian geographic names there are cognates within the Baltic toponymy, most similarities between Thracian and Balto-Slavic personal and geographic names were found, especially Baltic. According to Duridinov the "most important impression make the geographic cognates of Baltic and Thracian" "the similarity of these parallels stretching frequently on the main element and the suffix simultaneously, which makes a strong impression". According to him there are occasional similarities between Slavic and Thracian because Slavic is related to Baltic, while almost no lexical similarities within Thracian and Phrygian were found. This significant relatedness show close affinity and kinship of Thracian with Baltic.
The following table shows the cognate Thracian and Baltic place names,
some Polish and related
Lechitic names from the transitional area of the ancient
Veneti-
Eneti along the
Amber Road
The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber from coastal areas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Prehistoric trade routes between Northern and Southern Europe were defined by the amber trade.
...
were added:
Fate of the Thracians and their language
According to Skordelis, when Thracians were subjected by
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
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. According to Crampton (1997) most Thracians were eventually Hellenized or Romanized, with the last remnants surviving in remote areas until the 5th century. According to Marinov the Thracians were likely completely Romanized and Hellenized after the last contemporary references to them of the 6th century. This theory holds the
Christianization of the Roman Empire
The growth of Christianity from its obscure origin 40 AD, with fewer than 1,000 followers, to being the majority religion of the entire Roman Empire by AD 350, has been examined through a wide variety of historiographical approaches.
Unt ...
as the main factor of immediate assimilation.
A quick extinction would intensely contrast the avoidance of Hellenization at least by
Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
till the present, possibly with the help of isolated mountainous areas.
Another author considers that the interior of Thrace have never been Romanized or Hellenized (Trever, 1939). 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. Because Pulpudeva survived as
Plovdiv
Plovdiv ( bg, Пловдив, ), is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace. It has a population of 346,893 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is the c ...
in Slavic languages, not under Philippopolis, some authors suggest that Thracian was not completely obliterated in the 7th century.
See also
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Dacian language
Dacian is an extinct language, generally believed to be Indo-European, that was spoken in the Carpathian region in antiquity.
In the 1st century, it was probably the predominant language of the ancient regions of Dacia and Moesia and possib ...
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List of reconstructed Dacian words
This article contains a list of reconstructed words of the ancient Dacian language. They have been restored by some linguists from attested Dacian place and personal names (toponyms and anthroponyms) and from words believed to be Dacian relics i ...
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Thraco-Illyrian
The term Thraco-Illyrian refers to a hypothesis according to which the Daco-Thracian and Illyrian languages comprise a distinct branch of Indo-European. Thraco-Illyrian is also used as a term merely implying a Thracian- Illyrian interference, m ...
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Illyrian languages
The Illyrian language () was an Indo-European language or group of languages spoken by the Illyrians in Southeast Europe during antiquity. The language is unattested with the exception of personal names and placenames. Just enough information ...
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Paeonian language
Paeonian, sometimes spelled Paionian, is a poorly attested, extinct language spoken by the ancient Paeonians until late antiquity.
Paeonia once stretched north of Macedon, into Dardania, and in earlier times into southwestern Thrace.
Classi ...
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Phrygian language
The Phrygian language () was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Anatolia (modern Turkey), during classical antiquity (c. 8th century BC to 5th century AD).
Phrygian ethno-linguistic homogeneity is debatable. Ancient Greek aut ...
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Ancient Macedonian language
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Thraco-Roman The term Thraco-Roman describes the Romanization (cultural), Romanized culture of Thracians under the rule of the Roman Empire.
The Odrysian kingdom of Thrace became a Roman client kingdom c. 20 BC, while the Greek city-states on the Black Sea coas ...
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Paleo-Balkan languages
The Paleo-Balkan languages or Palaeo-Balkan languages is a grouping of various extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans and surrounding areas in ancient times.
Paleo-Balkan studies are obscured by the scarce attestation of ...
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Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
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Proto-Albanian language
The Proto-Albanian language is the unattested language from which Albanian later developed. Albanian evolved from an ancient Paleo-Balkan language, traditionally thought to be Illyrian, or otherwise a totally unattested Balkan Indo-European ...
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Proto-Balto-Slavic language
Proto-Balto-Slavic (PBS or PBSl) is a reconstructed hypothetical proto-language descending from Proto-Indo-European (PIE). From Proto-Balto-Slavic, the later Balto-Slavic languages are thought to have developed, composed of sub-branches Baltic ...
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Proto-Greek language
The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, Aeol ...
Footnotes
References
Further reading
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* Duridanov, Ivan (1969). ''Die Thrakisch- und Dakisch-Baltischen Sprachbeziehungen''
hracian and Dacian Baltic Language Contacts Other. Verlag der Bulgarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sofia.
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*Georgiev, V. I. ''Introduction to the History of the Indo-European Languages''. Sofia: 1981.
*Holst, J. H. "Armenische Studien". Wiesbaden: 2009.
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Kretschmer, Paul. "Die Erste Thrakische Inschrift". In: ''Glotta'' 6, no. 1 (1914): 74-79. Accessed July 7, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40264867.
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* Russu, I. I. ''Limba Traco-Dacilor'' / ''Die Sprache der Thrako-Daker'', Bucharest (1967, 1969).
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* Yanakieva, Svetlana.
The Thracian Language. In: ''ORPHEUS: Journal of Indo-European and Thracian Studies'' 25 (2018): 26-68.
External links
an English translation of Ivan Duridanov's 1975 essay ''Ezikyt na trakite''
Palaeolexicon – Word study tool of ancient languages (including Thracian dictionary)
{{Thracians
Thracian language
Paleo-Balkan languages
Extinct languages of Europe
Languages of ancient Macedonia
Languages of ancient Thrace
Languages of ancient Anatolia
Languages extinct in the 5th century
Unclassified Indo-European languages