The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwic subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken by the Carians. The known corpus is small, and the majority comes from Egypt. Approximately 170 Carian inscriptions from Egypt are known, while only about 30 are known from Caria itself.
Caria is a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, a name possibly first mentioned in Hittite sources. Carian is closely related to Lycian and Milyan (Lycian B), and both are closely related to, though not direct descendants of, Luwian. Whether the correspondences between Luwian, Carian, and Lycian are due to direct descent (i.e. a language family as represented by a tree model), or are due to the effects of a sprachbund is disputed.Melchert, H. C. 2008. 'Lycian'. In The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor, ed. R. D. Woodard, 46–55 at p. 46. Cambridge.
Sources
Carian is known from these sources:. Translator Chris Markham.Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik).
Nearly 40 inscriptions from Caria, including five Carian-Greek bilinguals (however, for only two of them is the connection between the Carian and Greek text evident). Two inscriptions from mainland Greece: a bilingual from Athens and a graffito from Thessaloniki. 60 funeral inscriptions of the Caromemphites, an ethnic enclave at Memphis, Egypt, five of them bilingual (Carian-Egyptian); two inscriptions from Sais in the Nile delta are also bilingual. (The Caromemphites were descendants of Carian mercenaries who in the first quarter of the sixth century BCE came to Egypt to fight in the Egyptian army, as told by Herodotus, Histories, II.152-154, 163-169.) 130 graffiti from Abydos, Thebes, Abu Simbel, and elsewhere in Egypt. Coin legends from Mylasa, Kasolaba, Kaunos, and elsewhere in Caria, and Telmessos in Lycia.Koray Konuk, 'Coin legends in Carian', Appendix E in: Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik), pp. 471-492. Words stated to be Carian by ancient authors. Personal names with a suffix of -ασσις (-assis), -ωλλος (-ōllos), or -ωμος (-ōmos) in Greek records.
Decipherment Prior to the late 20th century, the language remained a total mystery, even though many characters of the script seemed to be from the Greek alphabet. Using Greek phonetic values of letters, investigators of the 19th and 20th centuries were unable to make headway and erroneously classified the language as non-Indo-European.
A breakthrough was reached in the 1980s, using bilingual funerary inscriptions (Carian-Egyptian) from Egypt (Memphis and Sais). By matching personal names in Carian characters with their counterparts in Egyptian hieroglyphs, John D. Ray, Diether Schürr, and Ignacio J. Adiego were able to unambiguously derive the phonetic value of most Carian signs. It turned out that not a single Carian consonant sign has the same phonetic value as signs of similar shape in the Greek alphabet. By 1993, the so-called "Ray-Schürr-Adiego System" was generally accepted, and its basic correctness was confirmed in 1996 when in Kaunos (Caria), a new Greek-Carian bilingual was discovered, where the Carian names nicely matched their Greek counterparts.Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik), pp. 166-204.
The language turned out to be Indo-European, its vocabulary and grammar closely related to the other Anatolian languages like Lycian, Milyan, or Lydian. A striking feature of Carian is the presence of large consonant clusters, due to a tendency not to write short vowels. Examples:
|+ |- | sb || width="10" | || = 'and' || width="10" | || cf. Milyan sebe, 'and' |- | ted || || = 'father' || || cf. Lycian tedi-, Lydian taada-, 'father' |- | en || || = 'mother' || || cf. Lycian ẽni, Lydian ẽnaś, 'mother' |- | Ktmno, k̂tmño || || (Carian personal name) || || Greek Hekatomnos (cf. Hecatomnus of Mylasa) |- | Psmaśk, Pismaśk, Pismašk || || (Egyptian personal name) || || Psamtik (cf. Greek Psammetikhos I, II, III, IV) |- | Kbid-, Kbd- || || (name of a Carian city) || || cf. Lycian χbide (Greek Kaunos)
The Carian alphabet
The sound values of the Carian alphabetic signs are very different from those in the usual Greek alphabets. Only four vowels signs are the same as in Greek (A = α, H = η, O = ο, Y = υ/ου), but not a single consonant is the same. The reason for this might be that the Carians originally developed an alphabet consisting of consonants only (like the Phoenician and Hieroglyphic alphabets before them), and later added the vowel signs, borrowed from a Greek alphabet.
The Carian alphabet consisted of about 34 characters:
+ transcription a b β d δ e γ i j k k̂ l λ Í m n ñ ŋ o p q r s ś š t τ u w y ý z 18 39 Carian sign 𐊠 Λ,𐊩 𐋊 𐊢,< 𐊾 𐊺,𐋏 𐋀 𐊹 𐋅 𐊼,𐊽 𐊴,+ 𐊣 𐊦 𐋃 𐊪 𐊵 𐊳 𐋄 𐊫 𐊷 ʘ,𐊨 ,𐊥 𐊰 𐊸 𐤧,𐤭 𐊭 𐋇 𐊲,V 𐊿 𐊤,𐋈 𐊻 𐋂 𐊱 𐋆 (rare variants) 𐊱?Koray Konuk has implicitly suggested that 𐊱 (sign '18') may be a variant of 𐊩 b (in Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik), pp. 485-486: M36 vs. M37). This would solve the "somewhat strange" fact (Adiego, ibidem, p. 211) that in the Stratonikeia inscriptions the common letter b is absent, while 𐊱 occurs several times. A counterargument is that in several other inscriptions 𐊱 and 𐊩 are present both (for example, ibidem p. 151: C.Ka 2, line 7). The photographs of M36 and M37 (ibidem p. 525) are inconclusive. 𐋋,𐋌,𐋍,𐊡 𐊧 𐋁 𐤴 𐋎? 𐋏,𐋎 𐋉 𐊮,𐊯 Ρ,𐊬 𐊶 𐋐 IPA /a/ /β/ /ᵐb/ /ð/? /ⁿd/ /e/ /ᵑkʷ/? /i/ /j/ /k/ /c/ /l~r/ /l:~d/ /rʲ/? /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ /ᵑk/ /o/ /p/ /kʷ/ /r/ /s/ /ç/ /ʃ/ /t/ /tʃ/ /u/ /w/ /y/ /ɥ/ /ts/ ? ? interchangeable?Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik), p. 235-237. a←e e→a j→i ℓ-variants w→u ý→y
In Caria inscriptions are usually written from left to right, but most texts from Egypt are written right-to-left; in the latter case each character is written mirrorwise. Some, mostly short, inscriptions have word dividers: vertical strokes, dots, spaces or linefeeds.
Phonology
Consonants In the chart below, the Carian letter is given, followed by the transcription. Where the transcription differs from IPA, the phonetic value is given in brackets. Many Carian phonemes were represented by multiple letter forms in various locations. The Egypto-Carian dialect seems to have preserved semivowels w, j, and ý lost or left unwritten in other varieties. Two Carian letters have unknown phonetic values: 𐊱 and 𐋆. The letter 𐊶 τ2 may have been equivalent to 𐋇 τ. BilabialAlveolarPostalveolarPalatalVelarLabiovelarPlosive𐊷 𐊭 𐊴, 𐊛 k̂ 𐊼,𐊽 𐊨 q Prenasalized𐋌 β 𐊾 δ 𐋄 ŋ ?𐋀,𐋁 γ ?Nasal𐊪 𐊵, 𐊜 𐊳 ñ Fricative𐊬, Λ b 𐊢 d 𐊰 𐊮,𐊯,𐤭 š 𐊸 ś Affricate𐋂 z 𐋇 τ 𐊶 τ2 ?Trill 𐊥 Lateral𐊣, 𐋎, 𐋃 𐊦, 𐊣 λ
𐋃, 𐋉 ĺ ?Approximant𐊿 †𐋅 †𐊻,𐋈,𐋐 ý † † Phonemes attested in Egypto-Carian only.
Lateral sounds Across the various sites where inscriptions have been found, the two lateral phonemes /l/ and /λ/ contrast but may be represented by different letters of the Carian script 𐊣/𐋎, 𐊦, and 𐋃/𐋉 depending on the location. The letter 𐋉 (formerly transcribed <ŕ>) is now seen as an Egyptian variant of 𐋃 <ĺ>.
Vowels In the chart below, the Carian letter for each vowel is followed by the conventional transcription with the Greek equivalent in parentheses. An epenthetic schwa to break up clusters may have been unwritten. FrontCentralBack-R+RClose𐊹; (ι)𐊤; (υ)𐊲; (ου)Open-mid𐊺, 𐋏; (η) - 𐊫; (ω)Open𐊠; (α)
Grammar Morphology
Nominal declension Carian nouns are inflected for at least three cases: nominative, accusative, and genitive. The dative case is assumed to be present also, based on related Anatolian languages and the frequency of dedicatory inscriptions, but its form is quite unclear. All Anatolian languages also distinguish between animate and inanimate noun genders.
case Singular Plural Nominative -Ø -Ø (-n?) -š (?) -Ø (?) Accusative -n -š Genitive / Possessive -ś, -s(?) -τ (??) Dative -s(?), -Ø(?), -e(?), -o(?), -i(?) -τ (?) Locative -o (?), -δ (??) Ablative / Instrumental -δ (?)Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik), p. 319.
Features that help identify the language as Anatolian include the asigmatic nominative (without the Indo-European nominative ending *-s) but -s for a genitive ending: 𐊿𐊸𐊫𐊦 wśoλ, 𐊿𐊸𐊫𐊦𐊰 wśoλ-s.. The similarity of the basic vocabulary to other Anatolian languages also confirms this e.g. 𐊭𐊺𐊢 ted "father"; 𐊺𐊵 en "mother". A variety of dative singular endings have been proposed, including zero-marked and -i/-e suffixation. No inanimate stem has been securely identified but the suffix -n may be reconstructed based on the inherited pattern. Alternatively, a zero ending may be derived from the historical *-od. The ablative (or locative?) case is suspected in one phrase (𐊠𐊣𐊫𐊰𐊾 𐊴𐊠𐊥𐊵𐊫𐊰𐊾 alosδ k̂arnosδ "from/in Halicarnassus(?)"), perhaps originally a clitic derived from the preverb δ "in, into" < PIE *endo.
Pronouns Of the demonstrative pronouns s(a)- and a-, 'this', the nominative and accusative are probably attested:Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik), pp. 319-320.
s(a)- a- Singular Singular Nominative sa san an (?) ann (?) Accusative snn an (?)
The relative pronoun k̂j, k̂i, originally 'who, that, which', has in Carian usually developed into a particle introducing complements. Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik), pp. 269-275, 320. Example:
iturowś / kbjomś / k̂i en / mw[d]onś k̂i [This is the stele] of Ithoros (Egyptian woman's name, genitive), who [is] the mother (en, nominative) of Kebiomos (genitive), who is 'Myndonian'(?) (inhabitant of the Carian city of Myndos: ethnonym, genitive).
The verb No undisputable verbal forms have yet been discovered in Carian. If verbal conjugation in Carian resembles the other Anatolian languages, one would expect 3rd person singular or plural forms, in both present and preterite, to end in -t or -d, or a similar sound. A few candidates have been proposed: ýbt, 'he offered', not 'he brings/brought', ait, 'they made', but these are not well established.
In a Carian-Greek bilingual from Kaunos, the first two words in Carian are kbidn uiomλn, corresponding to Greek ἔδοξε Καυνίοις, 'Kaunos decided' (literally: 'it seemed right to the Kaunians'). The first word, kbidn, is Carian for 'Kaunos' (or, 'the Kaunians'), so one would expect the second word, uiomλn, to be the verbal form, 'they decided'. Several more words ending in a nasal are suspected to be verbal forms, for example, mδane, mlane, mλn (cf. uio-mλn), 'they vowed, offered (?)', pisñ, 'they gave (?)'. However, to make such nasal endings fit in with the usual Anatolian verb paradigm (with 3rd person plural preterite endings in -(n)t/-(n)d, from *-onto), one would have to assume a non-trivial evolution in Carian from *-onto into -n, -ñ (and possibly -ne?).Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik), pp. 321-325.
Syntax Virtually nothing is known of Carian syntax. This is chiefly due to two factors: first, uncertainty as to which words are verbs; second, the longer Carian inscriptions hardly show word dividers. Both factors seriously hamper the analysis of longer Carian texts.
The only texts for which the structure is well understood are funeral inscriptions from Egypt.Adiego (2007), The Carian Language (Handbuch der Orientalistik), pp. 264-311. Their nucleus is the name of the deceased. Personal names in Carian were usually written as "A, [son] of B" (where B is in the genitive, formally recognizable from its genitival ending -ś). For example:
psmaśk iβrsiś = Psammetikhos [the son] of Imbarsis [was here] (graffito from Buhen)
In funeral inscriptions the father's name is often accompanied by the relative pronoun k̂i, "who, who is":
irow | pikraś k̂i = [Here lies] Irōw [Egyptian name] who is [the son] of Pigres [Anatolian name] (first part of a funeral inscription from Memphis)