The
Lemnian language is a language of the 6th century BC spoken on the island of
LemnosLemnos is an island of Greece in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Myrina...
. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary
steleA stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...
, termed the
Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near
KaminiaKaminia may refer to several places in Greece:*Kaminia, Hydra, a port near Hydra*Kaminia, Ioannina, a village in the northcentral part of the prefecture of Ioannina*Kaminia, Lemnos, a village in the island of Lemnos*Kaminia, Achaea, a village in Achaea...
. However, fragments of inscriptions on local pottery show that it was spoken there by a community. In 2009, a newly discovered inscription from Efestia was reported. Lemnian is accepted as being closely related to
EtruscanThe Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
. After the Athenians conquered the island in the latter half of that century, Lemnian was replaced by
Attic GreekAttic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
.
Writing system
The inscriptions are in an alphabet similar to that used to write the
Etruscan languageThe Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
and the older
PhrygianThe Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Asia Minor during Classical Antiquity .Phrygian is considered to have been closely related to Greek....
inscriptions, all derived from
EuboeaEuboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...
n scripts (Western Greek alphabet,
alphabets of Asia MinorVarious alphabetic writing systems were in use in Iron Age Anatolia to record Anatolian dialects and the Phrygian language. Previously several of these languages had been written with logographic and syllabic systems....
).
Classification
A relationship between Lemnian,
EtruscanThe Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
, and
RaetianRaetic is an extinct language spoken in the ancient region of Raetia in the Eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by a limited number of short inscriptions in two variants of the Etruscan alphabet...
as a
Tyrsenian language familyTyrsenian , named after the Tyrrhenians , is a closely related ancient language family proposed by Helmut Rix , that consists of the extinct Etruscan language of central Italy, the extinct Raetic language of the Alps, and the extinct Lemnian language of the Aegean Sea.-The...
is widely accepted due to demonstrations of close connections in vocabulary and grammar. For example,
- both Etruscan and Lemnian share two unique dative cases, type-I *-si and type-II *-ale, shown both on the Lemnos Stele (Hulaie-ši "for Hulaie", Φukiasi-ale "for the Phocaean") and in inscriptions written in Etruscan (aule-si "To Aule" on the Cippus Perusinus
The Cippus Perusinus is a stone tablet discovered on the hill of San Marco, near Perugia, Italy, in 1822. The tablet bears 46 lines of Etruscan text exquisitely carved into it...
as well as the inscription mi mulu Laris-ale Velχaina-si "I was blessed for Laris Velchaina").
- They also share the genitive in *-s and a simple past tense in *-a-i (Etruscan <-e> as in ame "was" (< *amai); Lemnian <-ai> as in šivai "lived").
Vowels
Like Etruscan, the Lemnian language appears to have had a four-vowel system, consisting of "i", "e", "a" and "u". Having a contrast between front and back vowels, it would (unlike Etruscan) appear to lack a high back rounded vowel (written in
IPAThe International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
as /u/) which is curious because this defies the
linguistic universalA linguistic universal is a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially true for all of them. For example, All languages have nouns and verbs, or If a language is spoken, it has consonants and vowels. Research in this area of linguistics is closely tied to the study of...
of contrast maximization. Since vowel systems without /u/ are rare (though occurring in languages such as
SenecaSeneca is the language of the Seneca people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. About 10,000 Seneca live in the United States and Canada, primarily on reservations in western New York, with others living in Oklahoma and near Brantford, Ontario.-Phonology:Seneca words are written with...
and
NahuatlNahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...
), it is likely that what we transliterate as "o" from the symbol
omicronOmicron is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 70. It is rarely used in mathematics because it is indistinguishable from the Latin letter O and easily confused with the digit 0...
was in fact meant to record /u/. This is not unusual considering that different languages may take the same letter to transcribe different sounds. It is rather coincidental that the languages neighbouring this region, namely
HittiteHittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
and
AkkadianAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
, also happen to have the same four-vowel systems lacking "o". This suggests early areal influence.
Lemnos Stele
The stele was found built into a church wall in
KaminiaKaminia may refer to several places in Greece:*Kaminia, Hydra, a port near Hydra*Kaminia, Ioannina, a village in the northcentral part of the prefecture of Ioannina*Kaminia, Lemnos, a village in the island of Lemnos*Kaminia, Achaea, a village in Achaea...
and is now at the
National Archaeological Museum of AthensThe National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek...
. The 6th century date is based on the fact that in 510 BC the Athenian
MiltiadesMiltiades the Younger or Miltiades IV was the son of one Cimon, a renowned Olympic chariot-racer. Miltiades considered himself a member of the Aeacidae, and is known mostly for his role in the Battle of Marathon; as well as his rather tragic downfall afterwards. His son Cimon was a major Athenian...
invaded Lemnos and Hellenized it. The stele bears a low-relief bust of a helmeted man and is inscribed in an alphabet similar to the western ("Chalcidian")
Greek alphabetThe Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
. The inscription is in
BoustrophedonBoustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern English, or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in...
style, and has been transliterated but had not been successfully translated until serious linguistic analysis based on comparisons with Etruscan, combined with breakthroughs in Etruscan's own translation started to yield fruit.
The inscription consists of 198 characters forming 33 to 40 words, word separation sometimes indicated with one to three dots. The text consists of three parts, two written vertically and one horizontally. Comprehensible is the phrase
aviš sialχviš ("aged sixty", B.3), reminiscent of Etruscan
avils maχs śealχisc ("and aged sixty-five").
Transcription:
- front:
- A.1. hulaieš:naφuθ:šiaši
- A.2. maraš:mav
- A.3. sialχveiš:aviš
- A.4. evisθu:šerunaiθ
- A.5. šivai
- A.6. aker:tavaršiu
- A.7. vanalasial:šerunai:murinail
- side:
- B.1. hulaieši:φukiasiale:šerunaiθ:evisθu:tuveruna
- B.2. rum:haraliu:šivai:eptešiu:arai:tiš:φuke
- B.3. šivai:aviš:sialχviš:marašm:aviš:aumai
Efestia inscription
A novel Lemnian inscription has been found during excavations at Efestia on the island of Lemnos. The inscription consists of 26 letters arranged in two lines of boustrophedal script.
Transcription:
- upper line (left to right):
- hktaonosi:heloke
- lower line (right to left):
- soromš:aslaš
See also
- Etruscan civilization
Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...
- Aegean languages
- Etruscan language
The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...
- Liber Linteus
The Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis is the longest Etruscan text and the only extant linen book...
- Tabula Cortonensis
The Tabula Cortonensis is a 2200-year-old, bronze artifact of Etruscan origin, discovered in Cortona, Italy. It may record for posterity the details of an ancient real estate transaction which took place in the ancient Tuscan city of Cortona, known to the Etruscans as Curtun...
- Cippus perusinus
The Cippus Perusinus is a stone tablet discovered on the hill of San Marco, near Perugia, Italy, in 1822. The tablet bears 46 lines of Etruscan text exquisitely carved into it...
- Pyrgi Tablets
The Pyrgi Tablets, found in a 1964 excavation of a sanctuary of ancient Pyrgi on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy , are three golden leaves that record a dedication made around 500 BC by Thefarie Velianas, king of Caere, to the Phoenician goddess ʻAshtaret. Pyrgi was the port of the southern Etruscan...
External links