The Celtiberian script is a Paleohispanic script that was the main

writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

of the

Celtiberian language Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula between the headwaters of the Douro, Tagus, Júcar and Turia rivers and the ...

, an extinct Continental Celtic language, which was also occasionally written using the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

. This script is a direct adaptation of the northeastern Iberian script, the most frequently used of the Iberian scripts.

Origins

All the Paleohispanic scripts, with the exception of the Greco-Iberian alphabet, share a common distinctive typological characteristic: they represent syllabic values for the

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

s, and monophonemic values for the rest of

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

and vowels. They are thus to be classed as neither

alphabets An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

nor syllabaries; rather, they are mixed scripts normally identified as semi-syllabaries. There is no agreement about how the Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries originated; some researchers conclude that they derive only from the

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions fo ...

, while others believe the

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

was also involved.

Typology and variants

The basic Celtiberian signary contains 26 signs rather than the 28 signs of the original model; the Celtiberians omitted one of the two rhotic and one of the three nasals of the northeastern Iberian script. The remaining 26 signs comprised 5

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

s, 15 syllabic signs and 6 consonants (one

lateral Lateral is a geometric term of location which may also refer to: Biology and healthcare * Lateral (anatomy), a term of location meaning "towards the side" * Lateral cricoarytenoid muscle, an intrinsic muscle of the larynx * Lateral release ( ...

, two sibilants, one rhotic and two nasals). The sign equivalent to Iberian ''s'' is transcribed as ''z'' in Celtiberian, because it is assumed that it sometimes expresses the fricative result of an ancient dental stop (''d''), while the Iberian sign ''ś'' is transcribed as ''s''. As for the use of the nasal signs, there are two variants of the Celtiberian script: In the eastern variant, the excluded nasal sign was the Iberian sign ''ḿ'', while in the western variant, the excluded nasal sign was the Iberian sign ''m''. This is interpreted as evidence of a double origin of the Celtiberian script. Like one variant of the northeastern Iberian script, the western variant of Celtiberian shows evidence of having allowed the voiced stops ''g'' and ''d'' to be differentiated from their respective voiceless counterparts, ''k'' and ''t'', by adding a stroke to the voiceless signs. This is known as the ‘dual system’ in Paleohispanic scripts, which otherwise do not distinguish between pairs of voiceless and voiced stops (''p:b, t:d'' and ''k:g'').

Location of findings

The Celtiberian inscriptions have been found mainly in the Ebro valley and near the sources of the

Tagus The Tagus ( ; ; ) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales between Cuenca and Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally westward, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Lisbon. Name T ...

and

Douro The Douro (, , , ; ; ) is the largest river of the Iberian Peninsula by discharge. It rises near Duruelo de la Sierra in the Spanish Soria Province, province of Soria, meanders briefly south, then flows generally west through the northern par ...

rivers, where Roman and Greek sources place the Celtiberian people. The Celtiberian inscriptions were made on different types of objects (

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

and

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

coins A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

, ceramic receptacles,

plaques and tesseras, amphores, stones, spindle-whorls, etc.). There are just under two hundred surviving inscriptions, one of which is exceptionally long: the third Botorrita bronze plaque (

Zaragoza Zaragoza (), traditionally known in English as Saragossa ( ), is the capital city of the province of Zaragoza and of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributaries, the ...

) with more than three thousand signs containing a census of nearly 250 people. Almost always the direction of the writing is left to right. The fact that nearly all the Celtiberian inscriptions were found out of archaeological context does not allow a precise chronology to be established, but it seems that the earliest inscriptions in the Celtiberian script date from the 2nd century BCE while the latest ones date from the 1st century BCE. File:Zaragoza - Museo - Bronce epigráfico.jpg, Cortono plaque. Unknown provenance. Western signary. File:Bronce luzaga.jpg, Luzaga plaque (

Guadalajara Guadalajara ( ; ) is the capital and the most populous city in the western Mexican List of states of Mexico, state of Jalisco, as well as the most densely populated municipality in Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population ...

). Western signary. File:Tésera hospitalidad (Uxama).jpg, Uxama tessera (Osma, Soria. Western signary. File:Botorrita 1.jpg, First Botorrita plaque (

). Eastern signary. File:Zaragoza - Museo - Grafito 01.jpg, Another Botorrita plaque (

). Eastern signary. File:Tessera Celtiberian (unknown).jpg, Fröhner tessera. Unknown provenance. Eastern signary.

Notes

Bibliography

* Ferrer i Jané, Joan (2005)
«Novetats sobre el sistema dual de diferenciació gràfica de les oclusives sordes i sonores»
''Palaeohispanica'' 5, pp. 957–982. * Hoz, Javier de (2005): «La lengua y la escritura celtibéricas», ''Celtiberos. Tras la estela de Numancia'', pp. 417–426. * Jordán, Carlos (2004): ''Celtibérico'', Zaragoza. * Jordán, Carlos (2005)
«¿Sistema dual de escritura en celtibérico?»
''Palaeohispanica'' 5, pp. 1013–1030. * Rodríguez Ramos, Jesús (1997): «Sobre el origen de la escritura celtibérica», ''Kalathos'' 16, pp. 189–197. * Untermann, Jürgen (1997): ''Monumenta Linguarum Hispanicarum. IV Die tartessischen, keltiberischen und lusitanischen Inschriften'', Wiesbaden. * Schmoll, Ulrich (1960) : «Die iberischen und keltiberischen Nasalzeichen», ''KZ'' 76, 280-295. * Villar, Francisco (1993): «Las silibantes en celtibérico», ''Lengua y cultura en la Hispania prerromana'', pp. 773–812. * Villar, Francisco (1995): ''Estudios de celtibérico y toponimia prerromana'', Salamanca.

External links

The letters of the Celtiberian scriptA transcription of a Botorrita plaque
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20071027134719/http://www.webpersonal.net/jrr/ib5_en.htm The Celtiberian script - Jesús Rodríguez Ramos* {{DEFAULTSORT:Celtiberian Script Writing systems Celtic art Obsolete writing systems Paleohispanic languages Palaeohispanic writing