Elymian is the

extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, l ...

of the ancient Elymian people of western

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. Its characteristics are little known because of the extremely limited and fragmentary nature of the surviving texts. The origins of Elymian and its exact relationships with other languages are unclear due to scarcity of data. It is generally assumed to have been an

Indo-European language 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, Du ...

, but its classification within the Indo-European family is disputed. It has been speculated that Elymian was related to either the

Italic languages The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient languages was Latin, the official languag ...

or the

Anatolian languages The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia, part of present-day Turkey. The best known Anatolian language is Hittite, which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European langua ...

(such as Hittite), although both theories are disputed.

Characteristics

Only a handful of Elymian texts have survived, dating from between the 6th and 4th centuries BC. These comprise a few proper names recorded by non-Elymian sources; inscriptions in

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

on several coins, which include the names of Elymian cities; and inscriptions in Greek alphabet on about 170 fragments of pottery (found mostly in a votive deposit at the ruined Elymian city of Segesta). These texts have been identified as Elymian, based on their evidently non-Hellenic characteristics, location and age. The majority of textual artefacts are very short and fragmentary, comprising only a few letters. A small number of longer texts apparently contain a personal name and may have been dedicatory epigraphs. They sometimes appear to resemble Hellenic dedicatory epigraphs, in which an

anthroponym Anthroponymy (also anthroponymics or anthroponomastics, from Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος ''anthrōpos'' / 'human', and ὄνομα ''onoma'' / 'name') is the study of ''anthroponyms'', the proper names of human beings, both individual and c ...

in genitive form is followed by a verb literally meaning "I am" in order to convey "belonging". A vase found at

Montedoro Montedoro ( Sicilian: ''Muntidoru'') is a '' comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Caltanissetta in the Italian region Sicily, located about southeast of Palermo and about west of Caltanissetta. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of ...

, around 15 km southwest of

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its ...

, features one of the few complete inscriptions in Elymian. It has been tentatively translated to read "I he potam giftof Ata Tuka", or "I am giftof Ata of son ofTuka".

Classification

The inclusion of Elymian within the Indo-European language family is generally accepted, but its further affiliation to the established branches of Indo-European is still disputed. Proposed classifications of the Elymian language can be summarized under two main positions. Some

historical linguists Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

agree that some peculiarities of that language – like non-alphabetic symbols engraved on some dedicatory fragments of pots, and genitive in -''ai'' found in almost all the complete sequences – are suggestive of a connection to the

, and in particular, to Hittite. Other historical linguists classify Elymian as related to the

on the basis of other possible features. Any resolution of the question of affiliation appears to rely on further archaeological investigations at Elymian settlements in western Sicily.

Characteristics

Classification

References

Further reading