The Phrygian language () was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Anatolia (in modern Turkey), during classical antiquity (c. 8th century BCE to 5th century CE).
Phrygian ethno-linguistic homogeneity is debatable. Ancient Greek authors used "Phrygian" as an umbrella term to describe a vast ethno-cultural complex located mainly in the central areas of Anatolia rather than a name of a single "tribe" or "people". Plato observed that some Phrygian words resembled Greek ones.Plato, Cratylus (410a)
Because of the fragmentary evidence of Phrygian, its exact position within the Indo-European language family is uncertain. Phrygian shares important features mainly with Greek, but also with Armenian and Albanian. Evidence of a Thraco-Armenian separation from Phrygian and other Paleo-Balkan languages at an early stage, Phrygian's classification as a centum language, and the high frequency of phonetic, morphological, and lexical isoglosses shared with Greek, have led to a current consensus which regards Greek as the closest relative of Phrygian. "Unquestionably, however, Phrygian is most closely linked with Greek." (p. 72).
Discovery and decipherment Ancient authors like Herodotus and Hesychius have preserved a few dozen words assumed to be Phrygian, so-called glosses.Obrador Cursach (2018), pp. 337–344 In modern times the first monument with a Phrygian text, found at Ortaköy (classical Orcistus), was described in 1752.Obrador Cursach (2018), pp. 428 In 1800 at Yazılıkaya (classical Nakoleia) two more inscriptions were discovered. ("Midas, or an attempt to clarify the apparently oldest Greek inscription (...)"; in German.)M-01a and M-01b in Obrador Cursach (2018), p. 349. On one of them the word ΜΙΔΑΙ (Midai), 'to Midas', could be read, which prompted the idea that they were part of a building, possibly the grave, of the legendary Phrygian king Midas. Later, when Western archeologists, historians and other scholars began to travel through Anatolia to become acquainted with the geographical background of Homer's world and the New Testament, more monuments were discovered. By 1862 sixteen Phrygian inscriptions were known, among them a few Greek-Phrygian bilinguals. This allowed German scholar Andreas David Mordtmann to undertake the first serious attempt to decipher the script, though he overstressed the parallels of Phrygian to Armenian, which led to some false conclusions. ("On the Old Phrygian language, with two figures showing the inscriptions"; in German.) After 1880, the Scottish Bible scholar William Mitchell Ramsay discovered many more inscriptions. In the 20th century, the understanding of Phrygian has increased, due to a steady flow of new texts, more reliable transcriptions, and better knowledge of the Indo-European sound change laws. The alphabet is now well-known, though minor revisions of the rarer signs of the alphabet are still possible; one sign ( = /j/, transcribed y) was only securely identified in 1969.Obrador Cursach (2018), p. 35.
Classification
Phrygian is a member of the Indo-European linguistic family, but because of the fragmentary evidence, its exact position within that family is uncertain. Phrygian is placed among the Palaeo-Balkan languages, either through areal contact or genetic relationship. Phrygian shares important features mainly with Greek, but also with Armenian and Albanian. Ancient Macedonian (most probably a Northwest Greek dialect), Thracian and Albanian are often regarded as being close to Phrygian, "but the relationship is too problematic for them to be useful sources for comparison; "the Thracian corpus is too short to give an overview of this language", "Macedonian is better explained as a Greek dialect than a proper language", and "Albanian is attested as late as fourteenth century".
Between the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, Phrygian was mostly considered a satem language, and thus closer to Armenian and Thracian, while today it is commonly considered to be a centum language and thus closer to Greek. The reason that in the past Phrygian had the guise of a satem language was due to two secondary processes that affected it. Namely, Phrygian merged the old labiovelar with the plain velar, and secondly, when in contact with palatal vowels /e/ and /i/, especially in initial position, some consonants became palatalized. Furthermore, Kortlandt (1988) presented common sound changes of Thracian and Armenian and their separation from Phrygian and the rest of the palaeo-Balkan languages from an early stage.
Modern consensus views Greek as the closest relative of Phrygian. Furthermore, out of 36 isoglosses collected by Obrador Cursach, Phrygian shared 34 with Greek, with 22 being exclusive between them. The last 50 years of Phrygian scholarship developed a hypothesis that proposes a proto-Graeco-Phrygian stage out of which Greek and Phrygian originated, and if Phrygian was more sufficiently attested, that stage could perhaps be reconstructed.: "The mutual relationship between the "Balkanic" languages – Greek (Chapter 11), Armenian (Chapter 12), Albanian (Chapter 13) as well as scantily attested languages such as Phrygian and Messapic – is evaluated differently by the authors of this book. While Greek is thought to constitute a phylogenetic unit together with Phrygian in all three chapters, the hypothesis of a Graeco-Armenian subgroup is given a negative appraisal by van Beek (Chapter 11), while Olsen and Thorsø (Chapter 12) are positive. A third position is taken by Hyllested and Joseph (Chapter 13), who argue that Greek forms a subgroup with the notoriously difficult Albanian."
An alternative theory, suggested by Eric P. Hamp, is that Phrygian was most closely related to Italo-Celtic languages.
Isoglosses Comparison with Greek, Armenian, Albanian and Indo-Iranian:
+Phonetic Phrygian features Greek Armenian Albanian Indo-Iranian ExamplesCentum treatment NP γεγαριτμενος 'devoted, at the mercy of', γλουρεος 'golden'*CRh₃C > *CRōC NP γλουρεος 'golden' Loss of sibilant /s/ at prevocalic and intervocalic positions OP _egeseti 'hold, experience' < PIE *seǵh-,NP δε_ως 'god' < PIE *dhh1so-"Prothetic" vowels OP onoman 'name', NP αναρ 'husband'PIE suffix *-ih₂ > -iya OP niptiyaPIE onset *ki̯- > s- OP sin, si (demonstrative pronoun)PIE final *-m > -n ? NP δετο(υ)ν < PIE *dh1tóm*D > T NP Τιαν 'Zeus' < PIE *diēm
+MorphologicalPhrygian features Greek Armenian Albanian Indo-Iranian Examples conditional conjunction PIE *éh2i, *áHi OP ai, ay/NP αιe-augment PIE *(h1)é-dheh1-t '(s)he put', OP e-da-es, Greek ἔ-θη-κα, Armenian e-de-demonstrative OP e-sai⸗t*-eh₂-s masc. cf. OP mekas and Sanskrit máhit-enlargement verbs in -e-yo- verbs in -o-yo- particle *-dhn̥ *dhh₁s-ó- *-eu̯-/*-ēu̯- *gu̯her-mo- *gu̯neh₂-ik- compound pronoun *h₂eu̯-to- NP αυτος*h₃nh₃-mn- *méǵh₂-s PIE *meh₁ OP me/NP με 'not' perfect middle participle *-mh₁no- NP γεγαριτμενος 'cursed, devoted' OP ni(y)/NP νι *-(t)or ? -toy/-τοι
+LexicalPhrygian features Greek Armenian Albanian Indo-Iranian*bhoh₂-t-/*bheh₂-t- *(h₁)en-mén- *ǵhl̥h₃-ró- kako- ken- *koru̯- *mōro- *sleh₂gu̯-
Inscriptions The Phrygian epigraphical material is divided into two distinct subcorpora, Old Phrygian (or Paleo-Phrygian) and New Phrygian (or Neo-Phrygian). These attest different stages of the Phrygian language, are written with different alphabets and upon different materials, and have different geographical distributions.
Old Phrygian is attested in 395 inscriptions in Anatolia and beyond. They were written in the Phrygian alphabet between 800 and 330 BCE. The Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes (CIPPh) and its supplementsBrixhe, Lejeune, Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes, 1984; Brixhe 2002a and 2004a contain most known Old Phrygian inscriptions, though a few graffiti are not included. The oldest inscriptions—from the mid-8th century BCE—have been found on silver, bronze, and alabaster objects in tumuli (grave mounds) at Gordion (Yassıhüyük, the so-called "Midas Mound") and Bayındır (East Lycia).Obrador Cursach, pp. 369–370, 390, 418–420.
New Phrygian is attested in 117 funerary inscriptions, mostly curses against desecrators added after a Greek epitaph. New Phrygian was written in the Greek alphabet between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE and is restricted to the western part of ancient Phrygia, in central Anatolia. Most New Phrygian inscriptions have been lost, so they are only known through the testimony of the first compilers. New Phrygian inscriptions have been cataloged by William M. Ramsay (c. 1900) and by Obrador-Cursach (2018).
Some scholars identify a third division, Middle Phrygian, which is represented by a single inscription from Dokimeion. It is a Phrygian epitaph consisting of six hexametric verses written in eight lines, and dated to the end of the 4th century BCE, following the Macedonian conquest. It is considered the first Phrygian text to be inscribed with the Greek alphabet. Its phraseology has some echoes of an Old Phrygian epitaph from Bithynia, but it anticipates phonetic and spelling features found in New Phrygian. Three graffiti from Gordion, from the 4th to the 2nd centuries BCE, are ambiguous in terms of the alphabet used as well as their linguistic stage, and might also be considered Middle Phrygian. +Comparison between the Old and the New Phrygian subcorpora Features Old Phrygian New Phrygian Number of inscriptions 395117 Dating c. 800–330 BCELate 1st–3rd centuries CE AlphabetPhrygianGreek Word dividersClaude Brixhe (2008), 'Phrygian', in: Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor (Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press), pp. 69–80: p. 73, 78. sometimes (spaces or colons) never (continuous writing) Writing materialVariedStone Contents Varied Funerary AreaAcross Anatolia (and beyond)Only central AnatoliaArchaeological contextMainly yesNeverPreservedMainly yesMainly no The last mentions of the language date to the 5th century CE, and it was likely extinct by the 7th century CE.
Phonology Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Nasal Stop Fricative Affricate Approximant Trill
It has long been claimed that Phrygian exhibits a sound change of stop consonants, similar to Grimm's Law in Germanic and, more to the point, sound laws found in Proto-Armenian;Bonfante, G. "Phrygians and Armenians", Armenian Quarterly, 1 (1946), 82- 100 (p. 88). i.e., loss of aspiration in PIE aspirates, devoicing of PIE voiced stops and aspiration of voiceless stops. This hypothesis was rejected by Lejeune (1979) and Brixhe (1984)Woodard, Roger D. The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor, Cambridge University Press, 2008, , p. 74. but revived by Lubotsky (2004) and Woodhouse (2006), who argue that there is evidence of a partial shift of obstruent series; i.e., loss of aspiration in PIE aspirates (*bʱ > b) and devoicing of PIE voiced stops (*d > t).Lubotsky, A. "The Phrygian Zeus and the problem of „Lautverschiebung". Historische Sprachforschung, 117. 2. (2004), 229–237.
The affricates ts and dz may have developed from velars before front vowels.
Alphabet
From c. 800 to 300 BCE, Phrygians used the (Old) Phrygian alphabet of nineteen letters derived from the Phoenician alphabet. This script was usually written from left to right ("dextroverse"). The signs of this script are:Obrador Cursach (2018), p. 34.
+ sign B Γ Δ E F I K O P T variants 8 Λ , , 𐊜, , , X Φ, , transcription a b g d e v i k l m n o p r s t u y phoneme /a/, /a:/ /b/ /g/ /d/ /e/, /e:/ /w/ /i/, /i:/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /o/, /o:/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /u/, /u:/ /j/ /z/ /zd/?
About 15 percent of the inscriptions are written from right to left ("sinistroverse"), like Phoenician; in those cases, the signs are drawn mirrored:... etc. instead of BΓ.... A few dozen inscriptions are written in alternating directions (boustrophedon).