Ligurian language
Encyclopedia
The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy
and south-eastern France
known as the Ligures
. Very little is known about this language (mainly place names and personal names remain) which is generally believed to have been, in the 1st millennium BCE, Indo-European
; it appears to have shared many features with other Indo-European languages, primarily Celtic
(Gaulish
) and Italic
(Latin
and the Osco-Umbrian languages
).
, located near a river
mouth) is claimed by Delamarre to derive from PIE
*ǵenu-, "chin(bone)". Many Indo-European languages use 'mouth' to mean the part of a river which meets the sea or a lake, but it is only in Celtic
that reflexes of PIE *ǵenu- mean 'mouth'. Besides Genua, which is considered Ligurian (Delamarre 2003, p. 177), this is found also in Genava (modern Geneva
), which may be Gaulish. However, Genua and Genava may well derive from another PIE root with the form *ǵenu-, which means "knee
" (so in Pokorny, IEW http://www.ieed.nl/cgi-bin/response.cgi?flags=eygtnrl&single=1&basename=/data/ie/pokorny&text_recno=571&root=leiden).
Delamarre's second point is Plutarch
's mention (Marius 10, 5-6) that during the Battle of Aquae Sextiae
in 102 BC
, the Ambrones
(who may have been a Celtic tribe) began to shout "Ambrones!" as their battle-cry; the Ligurian troops fighting for the Romans
, on hearing this cry, found that it was identical to an ancient name in their country which the Ligurians often used when speaking of their descent (outôs kata genos onomazousi Ligues), so they returned the shout, "Ambrones!".
Delamarre points out a risk of circular logic - if it is believed that the Ligurians are non-Celtic, and if many place names and tribal names that classical authors state are Ligurian seem to be Celtic, it is incorrect to discard all the Celtic ones when collecting Ligurian words and to use this edited corpus to demonstrate that Ligurian is non-Celtic or non-Indo-European.
The Ligurian-Celtic question is also discussed by Barruol (1999).
indicates that the Ligurians were different from the Celts: "As for the Alps
... Many tribes (éthnê) occupy these mountains, all Celtic (Keltikà) except the Ligurians; but while these Ligurians belong to a different people (hetero-ethneis), still they are similar to the Celts in their modes of life (bíois)."
Herodotus
(5.9) wrote that sigunnai
meant 'hucksters, peddlers' among the Ligurians who lived above Massilia.
held that Ligurian was akin to Iberian
and descended from a non-Indo-European substrate language once widespread in the western Mediterranean and roughly coterminous with the territory associated with the Cardium Pottery
culture of the 6th and 5th millennium BC.
In 1889 and 1894 Jubainville
proposed a non-Indo-European substrate
language for Corsica, Sardinia, eastern Spain, southern France and western Italy based on the occurrence there of place names ending in -asco, -asca, -usco, -osco, -osca, as well as -inco, -inca, and -aco, -aca. For examples of the Corsican toponymy cited by Jubainville, see Prehistory of Corsica. In Jubainville's view, two languages mentioned by classical authors were survivals from prehistory: Ligurian and Iberian
. This choice of languages relies on Seneca the Younger
, who spent eight years in exile on Corsica starting in 41 AD and expressed the opinion that the coastal Corsicans were Ligurian
but the inlanders were of Iberian
extraction, most like the Cantabri
.
Some of the world's most famous linguists (Paul Kretschmer
, Julius Pokorny
) then went further with the concept of a Celto-Ligurian substrate. However, the pursuit of this "Ligurian shadow" (Mees' term) came ultimately to nothing definitive.
The main problem with Jubainville's theory is that there is nothing particularly "non-Indo-European" about the place name suffixes associated with a "Ligurian substrate". Suffixes such as -ascum, -asca, -osca, -incus, -acum can just as well be Indo-European
. Thus, they prove nothing, unless the associated roots are shown to be pre-Indo-European
. The same "characteristically Ligurian" suffixes have been analyzed as Indo-European when occurring in Northern Italy or Southern France. For example, the Ligurian name of the Po
, Bodincus, glossed as "bottomless" by Pliny (Hist. Nat., iii. 122), has been analyzed as containing the PIE
base *bhu(n)d(h)- seen in Sanskrit
budhnah and Avestan
buna- "bottom", Greek
pythmen "foundation", Latin
fundus "bottom", Old Irish bond "sole of the foot" (see also Bodincomagus).
Another problem is the obvious anachronism between the pre-Roman Ligurian language and the Cardium Pottery culture of nearly 5,000 years before. Furthermore, several of the "ancient" suffixes cited by Jubainville, far from representing 7,000-year-old fossils, clearly indicate a continued productivity
well into medieval and even modern times. For example, -asco is often found suffixed to a Roman personal name (e.g. Lucinasco
, Marinasco, Martinasco, cf. the names Lucinus, Marinus, Martinus), evidently the name of the estate's owner, according to a well-known pattern of late imperial and medieval place name formation. In fact, the same suffix -asco is still used in modern Italian (and -ascu in modern Ligurian
) to form gentilic
s from place names in and around the Roman region of Liguria; e.g. bergamasco from Bergamo
, brigasco from Briga
and Briga Alta
, comasco from Como
, mentonasco from Menton
e, monegasco from Monaco
, ormeasco from Ormea
, roiasco from the Val Roia
, tendasco from Tenda
, urbasco from Urbe
, etc. (-asca is, of course, the feminine form).
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and south-eastern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
known as the Ligures
Ligures
The Ligures were an ancient people who gave their name to Liguria, a region of north-western Italy.-Classical sources:...
. Very little is known about this language (mainly place names and personal names remain) which is generally believed to have been, in the 1st millennium BCE, Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
; it appears to have shared many features with other Indo-European languages, primarily Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
(Gaulish
Gaulish language
The Gaulish language is an extinct Celtic language that was spoken by the Gauls, a people who inhabited the region known as Gaul from the Iron Age through the Roman period...
) and Italic
Italic languages
The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin , and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, and Latin.In the past various definitions of "Italic" have prevailed...
(Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and the Osco-Umbrian languages
Osco-Umbrian languages
The Osco-Umbrian languages or Sabellic languages are a group of languages that belong to the Italic language family of the Indo-European languages. They were spoken in central and southern Italy before Latin replaced them as the power of the Romans expanded...
).
Relationship with Celtic
Xavier Delamarre argues that Ligurian was a Celtic language, similar to, but not the same as Gaulish. His argument hinges on two points: firstly, the Ligurian place-name Genua (modern GenoaGenoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, located near a river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
mouth) is claimed by Delamarre to derive from PIE
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
*ǵenu-, "chin(bone)". Many Indo-European languages use 'mouth' to mean the part of a river which meets the sea or a lake, but it is only in Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
that reflexes of PIE *ǵenu- mean 'mouth'. Besides Genua, which is considered Ligurian (Delamarre 2003, p. 177), this is found also in Genava (modern Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
), which may be Gaulish. However, Genua and Genava may well derive from another PIE root with the form *ǵenu-, which means "knee
Knee
The knee joint joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two articulations: one between the fibula and tibia, and one between the femur and patella. It is the largest joint in the human body and is very complicated. The knee is a mobile trocho-ginglymus , which permits flexion and extension as...
" (so in Pokorny, IEW http://www.ieed.nl/cgi-bin/response.cgi?flags=eygtnrl&single=1&basename=/data/ie/pokorny&text_recno=571&root=leiden).
Delamarre's second point is Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
's mention (Marius 10, 5-6) that during the Battle of Aquae Sextiae
Battle of Aquae Sextiae
The Battle of Aquae Sextiae took place in 102 BC. After a string of Roman defeats , the Romans under Gaius Marius finally defeated the Teutones and Ambrones.-The battle:...
in 102 BC
102 BC
Year 102 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Marius and Catulus...
, the Ambrones
Ambrones
The Ambrones were a tribe that appeared briefly in the Roman sources relating to the 2nd century BC. They formed part of a coalition of peoples with the Cimbri of Jutland and the Teutones who were forced south by the flooding of their homeland.-History:...
(who may have been a Celtic tribe) began to shout "Ambrones!" as their battle-cry; the Ligurian troops fighting for the Romans
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
, on hearing this cry, found that it was identical to an ancient name in their country which the Ligurians often used when speaking of their descent (outôs kata genos onomazousi Ligues), so they returned the shout, "Ambrones!".
Delamarre points out a risk of circular logic - if it is believed that the Ligurians are non-Celtic, and if many place names and tribal names that classical authors state are Ligurian seem to be Celtic, it is incorrect to discard all the Celtic ones when collecting Ligurian words and to use this edited corpus to demonstrate that Ligurian is non-Celtic or non-Indo-European.
The Ligurian-Celtic question is also discussed by Barruol (1999).
Ancient sources
StraboStrabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
indicates that the Ligurians were different from the Celts: "As for the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
... Many tribes (éthnê) occupy these mountains, all Celtic (Keltikà) except the Ligurians; but while these Ligurians belong to a different people (hetero-ethneis), still they are similar to the Celts in their modes of life (bíois)."
Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
(5.9) wrote that sigunnai
Sigynnae
The Sigynnae were an obscure people of antiquity. They are variously located by ancient authors.According to Herodotus , they dwelt beyond the Danube, and their frontiers extended almost as far as the Eneti on the Adriatic. Their horses were small and flat-nosed with shaggy long hair, five fingers...
meant 'hucksters, peddlers' among the Ligurians who lived above Massilia.
Ligurian as pre-Indo-European substrate
A theory supported among others by French historian and philologist Marie Henri d'Arbois de JubainvilleMarie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville
Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville , was a French historian and philologist.He was born at Nancy. In 1851 he left the École des Chartes with the degree of palaeographic archivist...
held that Ligurian was akin to Iberian
Iberian language
The Iberian language was the language of a people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian peninsula. The ancient Iberians can be identified as a rather nebulous local culture between the 7th and 1st century BC...
and descended from a non-Indo-European substrate language once widespread in the western Mediterranean and roughly coterminous with the territory associated with the Cardium Pottery
Cardium Pottery
Cardium Pottery or Cardial Ware is a Neolithic decorative style that gets its name from the imprinting of the clay with the shell of the Cardium edulis, a marine mollusk...
culture of the 6th and 5th millennium BC.
In 1889 and 1894 Jubainville
Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville
Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville , was a French historian and philologist.He was born at Nancy. In 1851 he left the École des Chartes with the degree of palaeographic archivist...
proposed a non-Indo-European substrate
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
language for Corsica, Sardinia, eastern Spain, southern France and western Italy based on the occurrence there of place names ending in -asco, -asca, -usco, -osco, -osca, as well as -inco, -inca, and -aco, -aca. For examples of the Corsican toponymy cited by Jubainville, see Prehistory of Corsica. In Jubainville's view, two languages mentioned by classical authors were survivals from prehistory: Ligurian and Iberian
Iberian language
The Iberian language was the language of a people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian peninsula. The ancient Iberians can be identified as a rather nebulous local culture between the 7th and 1st century BC...
. This choice of languages relies on Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
, who spent eight years in exile on Corsica starting in 41 AD and expressed the opinion that the coastal Corsicans were Ligurian
Ligures
The Ligures were an ancient people who gave their name to Liguria, a region of north-western Italy.-Classical sources:...
but the inlanders were of Iberian
Iberians
The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...
extraction, most like the Cantabri
Cantabri
The Cantabri were a pre-Roman Celtic people which lived in the northern Atlantic coastal region of ancient Hispania, from the 4th to late 1st centuries BC.-Origins:...
.
Some of the world's most famous linguists (Paul Kretschmer
Paul Kretschmer
Paul Kretschmer was a German linguist who studied the earliest history and interrelations of the Indo-European languages and showed how they were influenced by non-Indo-European languages, such as Etruscan....
, Julius Pokorny
Julius Pokorny
Julius Pokorny was an Austrian linguist and scholar of the Celtic languages, particularly Irish, and a supporter of Irish nationalism. He held academic posts in Austrian and German universities.-Life:...
) then went further with the concept of a Celto-Ligurian substrate. However, the pursuit of this "Ligurian shadow" (Mees' term) came ultimately to nothing definitive.
The main problem with Jubainville's theory is that there is nothing particularly "non-Indo-European" about the place name suffixes associated with a "Ligurian substrate". Suffixes such as -ascum, -asca, -osca, -incus, -acum can just as well be Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
. Thus, they prove nothing, unless the associated roots are shown to be pre-Indo-European
Neolithic Europe
Neolithic Europe refers to a prehistoric period in which Neolithic technology was present in Europe. This corresponds roughly to a time between 7000 BC and c. 1700 BC...
. The same "characteristically Ligurian" suffixes have been analyzed as Indo-European when occurring in Northern Italy or Southern France. For example, the Ligurian name of the Po
Po River
The Po |Ligurian]]: Bodincus or Bodencus) is a river that flows either or – considering the length of the Maira, a right bank tributary – eastward across northern Italy, from a spring seeping from a stony hillside at Pian del Re, a flat place at the head of the Val Po under the northwest face...
, Bodincus, glossed as "bottomless" by Pliny (Hist. Nat., iii. 122), has been analyzed as containing the PIE
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
base *bhu(n)d(h)- seen in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
budhnah and Avestan
Avestan language
Avestan is an East Iranian language known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name...
buna- "bottom", Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
pythmen "foundation", Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
fundus "bottom", Old Irish bond "sole of the foot" (see also Bodincomagus).
Another problem is the obvious anachronism between the pre-Roman Ligurian language and the Cardium Pottery culture of nearly 5,000 years before. Furthermore, several of the "ancient" suffixes cited by Jubainville, far from representing 7,000-year-old fossils, clearly indicate a continued productivity
Productivity (linguistics)
In linguistics, productivity is the degree to which native speakers use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. Since use to produce novel structures is the clearest proof of usage of a grammatical process, the evidence most often appealed to as establishing productivity is...
well into medieval and even modern times. For example, -asco is often found suffixed to a Roman personal name (e.g. Lucinasco
Lucinasco
Lucinasco is a comune in the Province of Imperia in the Italian region Liguria, located about 90 km southwest of Genoa and about 11 km northwest of Imperia...
, Marinasco, Martinasco, cf. the names Lucinus, Marinus, Martinus), evidently the name of the estate's owner, according to a well-known pattern of late imperial and medieval place name formation. In fact, the same suffix -asco is still used in modern Italian (and -ascu in modern Ligurian
Ligurian language (Romance)
Ligurian is a Gallo-Romance language spoken in Liguria in Northern Italy, parts of the Mediterranean coastal zone of France, Monaco and in the villages of Carloforte and Calasetta in Sardinia. Genoese , spoken in Genoa, the capital of Liguria, is its most important dialect...
) to form gentilic
Demonym
A demonym , also referred to as a gentilic, is a name for a resident of a locality. A demonym is usually – though not always – derived from the name of the locality; thus, the demonym for the people of England is English, and the demonym for the people of Italy is Italian, yet, in english, the one...
s from place names in and around the Roman region of Liguria; e.g. bergamasco from Bergamo
Bergamo
Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
, brigasco from Briga
La Brigue
La Brigue is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.Brigue became part of France after the World War II, when Italy was forced to hand it over in September 1947 under the terms of the 1947 Peace of Paris. Before the hand over, it was part of Province of Cuneo...
and Briga Alta
Briga Alta
Briga Alta is a comune in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 80 km south of Turin and about 13 km southeast of Cuneo, on the border with France...
, comasco from Como
Como
Como is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy.It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como....
, mentonasco from Menton
Menton
Menton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ....
e, monegasco from Monaco
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
, ormeasco from Ormea
Ormea
Ormea is a comune in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 100 km south of Turin and about 40 km southeast of Cuneo...
, roiasco from the Val Roia
Roya River
The Roya , Roia , or Ròia is a 59 km river of France and Italy.The river rises in French territory near the Col de Tende and flows through the Mercantour National Park The river passes through the communes of Tende, Saorge, Breil-sur-Roya, La Brigue, before entering Italy in the commune of...
, tendasco from Tenda
Tende
Tende is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.-Geography:Tende is located within Mercantour National Park in the French Alps. The mountainous commune is bordered by Italy to the north, with the boundary determined by the watershed line between the two countries...
, urbasco from Urbe
Urbe
Urbe is a comune in the Province of Savona in the Italian region Liguria, located about 30 km northwest of Genoa and about 25 km northeast of Savona...
, etc. (-asca is, of course, the feminine form).
Sources
- Barruol, G. (1999) Les peuples pré-romains du sud-est de la Gaule - Etude de géographie historique, 2d ed., Paris
- Delamarre, X. (2003). Dictionaire de la Langue Gauloise (2nd ed.). Paris: Editions Errance. ISBN 2877722376
- Strabo (1917) The Geography of Strabo I. Horace Jones, translator. Loeb Classical Library. London, William Heineman.