The paleo-Hispanic languages were the languages of the

Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula This is a list of the pre-Roman people of the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania, i. e., modern Portugal, Spain and Andorra). Some closely fit the concept of a people, ethnic group or tribe. Others are confederations or even unions of tri ...

, excluding languages of foreign colonies, such as

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 ...

in Emporion and Phoenician in Qart Hadast. After the

Roman conquest of Hispania The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was a process by which the Roman Republic seized territories in the Iberian Peninsula that were previously under the control of native Celtic, Iberian, Celtiberian and Aquitanian tribes and the Car ...

the Paleohispanic languages, with the exception of

Proto-Basque Proto-Basque ( eu, aitzineuskara; es, protoeuskera, protovasco; french: proto-basque), or Pre-Basque, is the reconstructed predecessor of the Basque language before the Roman conquests in the Western Pyrenees. Background The first linguist wh ...

, were replaced by

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 ...

, the ancestor of the modern

Iberian Romance languages The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languagesIberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are a ...

Languages

Some of these languages were documented directly through inscriptions, mainly in

Paleohispanic scripts The Paleohispanic scripts are the writing systems created in the Iberian peninsula before the Latin alphabet became the main script. Most of them are unusual in that they are semi-syllabic rather than purely alphabetic, despite having su ...

, that date for sure between the 5th century BC, maybe from the 7th century in the opinion of some researchers, until the end of the 1st century BC or the beginning of the 1st century AD. *

Vasconic languages The Vasconic languages (from Latin 'Basque') are a putative family of languages that includes Basque and the extinct Aquitanian language. The extinct Iberian language is sometimes putatively included. The concept of the Vasconic languages is o ...

— Unattested, partially reconstructed through internal analysis of modern Basque. Proto-Basque is also the ancestor or sibling of the Aquitanian language (see below). ** Aquitanian — Close relative of modern

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

. Some scholars characterise Aquitanian as an ancestor of Basque, while others describe Aquitanian and Basque as siblings both descended from Proto-Basque. *

Unclassified language An unclassified language is a language whose genetic affiliation to other languages has not been established. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding inf ...

s ** Iberian — Shares many obvious similarities with the Vasconic languages. However, lack of data has thus far Unclassified language, prevented scholars from determining whether these similarities arose from Language convergence, convergence due to Language contact, intense contact, or whether Iberian does in fact possess a Language family, genetic relationship to the Vasconic languages. ** Tartessian language, Tartessian — Scholarly opinion places Tartessian definitely outside of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family, but Unclassified language, further classification remains uncertain. Tartessian seems to have borrowed many Toponymy, place names from some Celtic languages, Celtic and/or other Indo-European languages, Indo-European languages; but its syllable structure is totally incompatible with the phonology of any Indo-European language, and much more compatible with the phonology of the Vasconic languages and Iberian. Despite this phonological compatibility, a lack of data has thus far made it impossible to clarify any relationship with the

or Iberian. * Indo-European languages ** Celtic languages *** Celtiberian language, Celtiberian *** Gallaecian language, Gallaecian ** (Internally unclassified languages) *** Lusitanian language, Lusitanian — Definitely an Indo-European language. Possibly Celtic languages, Celtic or Italic, but a lack of data has prevented scholars from determining exactly where Lusitanian fits within the Indo-European family. *** (from Greek σορός ''sorós'' 'funerary urn' and θαπτός ''thaptós'' 'buried') is a hypothetical pre-Celtic language. Joan Coromines identified problematic words in Catalan with inscriptions on lead tablets, from ca. 2nd century CE, found at Amélie-les-Bains on the Catalan–French border. The inscriptions include some Latin but also a non-Latin and non-Celtic component that Coromines identifies with the Urnfield culture from a millennium earlier, claiming to have found such "Sorothaptic" place names across Europe. Like the better-known Vasconic substrate hypothesis, Coromines' Sorothaptic hypothesis has not been well received. Other Paleohispanic languages can only be identified indirectly through toponyms, anthroponyms or theonyms cited by Ancient Rome, Roman and Ancient Greece, Greek sources.

Classification

Of these languages, Celtiberian, Gallaecian, Lusitanian, and presumably Sorothaptic were Indo-European languages; Celtiberian and Gallaecian were Celtic languages, and Lusitanian may also have been, but the hypothetical Sorothaptic was not. Aquitanian was a precursor of

, while Tartessian and Iberian remain unclassified language, unclassified.

References

External links

Pre-Roman languages and writing systems from Spain and Portugal – Jesús Rodríguez Ramos

Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paleohispanic Languages Paleohispanic languages, Extinct languages of Europe Pre-Indo-Europeans Extinct languages of Spain

Languages

Classification

See also

References

Further reading

External links