Graeco-Phrygian (/ˌɡriːkoʊˈfrɪdʒiən/) is a proposed subgroup of the Indo-European language family which comprises the Hellenic and Phrygian languages.
| Graeco-Phrygian | |
|---|---|
| Greco-Phrygian | |
| (proposed) | |
| Geographic distribution | Southern Balkans, Anatolia (now Turkey) and Cyprus |
| Linguistic classification | Indo-European
|
| Proto-language | Proto-Graeco-Phrygian |
| Subdivisions |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | grae1234 |
Modern consensus views Greek as the closest relative of Phrygian, a position that is supported by Brixhe, Neumann, Matzinger, Woodhouse, Ligorio, Lubotsky, and Obrador-Cursach. 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.
Evidence
The linguist Claude Brixhe points to the following features Greek and Phrygian are known to have in common and in common with no other language:
- a certain class of masculine nouns in the nominative singular ending in -s
- a certain class of denominal verbs
- the pronoun auto-
- the participial suffix -meno-
- the stem kako-
- and the conjunction ai
Obrador-Cursach (2019) has presented further phonetic, morphological and lexical evidence supporting a close relation between Greek and Phrygian, as seen in the following tables that compare the different isoglosses between Phrygian, Greek, Armenian, Albanian and Indo-Iranian.
| Phrygian features | Greek | Armenian | Albanian | Indo-Iranian |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Centum treatment | + | – | – | – |
| *CRh₃C > *CRōC | + | – | – | – |
| Loss of /s/ | + | + | + | – |
| Prothetic vowels | + | + | + | – |
| *-ih₂ > -iya | + | – | + | – |
| *ki̯- > s- | + | – | – | – |
| *-m > -n | + | + | ? | – |
| *M > T | – | + | – | – |
| Phrygian features | Greek | Armenian | Albanian | Indo-Iranian |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conditional ai | + | – | – | – |
| e-augment | + | + | + | + |
| e-demonstrative | + | – | – | – |
| *-eh₂-s masc. | + | – | – | – |
| t-enlargement | + | – | – | – |
| verbs in -e-yo- | + | – | – | – |
| verbs in -o-yo- | + | – | – | – |
| *-dhn̥ | + | – | – | – |
| *dhh₁s-ó- | + | – | – | – |
| *-eu̯-/*-ēu̯- | + | – | – | – |
| *gu̯her-mo- | + | + | + | – |
| *gu̯neh₂-ik- | + | + | – | – |
| *h₂eu̯-to- | + | – | + | – |
| *h₃nh₃-mn- | + | + | – | – |
| *méǵh₂-s | + | – | – | – |
| *meh₁ | + | + | + | + |
| *-mh₁no- | + | – | – | – |
| ni(y)/νι | + | – | – | – |
| *-(t)or | – | ? | – | – |
| -toy/-τοι | + | – | – | + |
- Highlighted text indicates that borrowing cannot be totally ruled out.
| Phrygian features | Greek | Armenian | Albanian | Indo-Iranian |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| *bhoh₂-t-/*bheh₂-t- | + | – | – | – |
| *(h₁)en-mén- | + | – | – | – |
| *ǵhl̥h₃-ró- | + | – | – | – |
| kako- | + | – | – | – |
| ken- | + | + | – | – |
| *koru̯- | + | – | – | – |
| *mōro- | + | – | – | – |
| *sleh₂gu̯- | + | – | – | – |
- Highlighted text indicates that borrowing cannot be totally ruled out.
Other proposals
Greek has also been variously grouped with Armenian and Indo-Iranian (Graeco-Armenian; Graeco-Aryan), Ancient Macedonian (Hellenic) and, more recently, Messapic. Greek and Ancient Macedonian are most often classified under Hellenic; at other times, ancient Macedonian is seen as a Greek dialect and thus, Hellenic is posited to consist of only Greek dialects. The linguist Václav Blažek states that, in regard to the classification of these languages, "the lexical corpora do not allow any quantification" (see corpus and quantitative comparative linguistics).
References
- Brixhe, Claude (2008). "Phrygian". In Woodard, Roger D (ed.). The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-521-68496-5. "Unquestionably, however, Phrygian is most closely linked with Greek."
- Woodhouse 2009, p. 171:This question is of course only just separable from the question of which languages within Indo-European are most closely related to Phrygian, which has also been hotly debated. A turning point in this debate was Kortlandt's (1988) demonstration on the basis of shared sound changes that Thraco-Armenian had separated from Phrygian and other originally Balkan languages at an early stage. The consensus has now returned to regarding Greek as the closest relative.
- Ligorio & Lubotsky (2018), p. 1816: "Phrygian is most closely related to Greek. The two languages share a few unique innovations [...] It is therefore very likely that both languages emerged from a single language, which was spoken in the Balkans at the end of the third millennium BCE.
- Obrador-Cursach 2018, p. 102:Furthermore, if Phrygian were not so-poorly attested perhaps we could reconstruct a Proto-Greco-Phrygian stage of both languages.
- Obrador-Cursach 2020, pp. 238–239:To the best of our current knowledge, Phrygian was closely related to Greek. This affirmation is consistent with the vision offered by Neumann (1988: 23), Brixhe (2006) and Ligorio and Lubotsky (2018: 1816) and with many observations given by ancient authors. Both languages share 34 of the 36 features considered in this paper, some of them of great significance:…The available data suggest that Phrygian and Greek coexisted broadly from pre-historic to historic times, and both belong to a common linguistic area (Brixhe 2006: 39–44).
- Obrador-Cursach 2020, p. 243:With the current state of our knowledge, we can affirm that Phrygian is closely related to Greek. This is not a surprising conclusion: ancient sources and modern scholars agree that Phrygians did not live far from Greece in pre-historic times. Moreover, the last half century of scientific study of Phrygian has approached both languages and developed the hypothesis of a Proto-Greco-Phrygian language, to the detriment to other theories like Phrygio-Armenian or Thraco-Phrygian.
- Obrador-Cursach 2020, pp. 234–238.
- Blažek, Václav (November 2005). "On the internal classification of Indo-European languages: survey" (PDF). Linguistica Online: 6. ISSN 1801-5336.
Bibliography
- Ligorio, Orsat; Lubotsky, Alexander (2018). "Phrygian". In Jared Klein; Brian Joseph; Matthias Fritz (eds.). Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. HSK 41.3. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 1816–1831. doi:10.1515/9783110542431-022. hdl:1887/63481. ISBN 9783110542431. S2CID 242082908.
- Obrador-Cursach, Bartomeu (2018). Lexicon of the Phrygian Inscriptions (PDF). University of Barcelona – Faculty of Philology – Department of Classical, Romance and Semitic Philology.
- Obrador-Cursach, Bartomeu (2020). "On the place of Phrygian among the Indo-European languages". Journal of Language Relationship. 17 (3–4): 233–245. doi:10.31826/jlr-2019-173-407. S2CID 215769896.
- Woodhouse, Robert (2009). "An overview of research on Phrygian from the nineteenth century to the present day". Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis. 126 (1): 167–188. doi:10.2478/v10148-010-0013-x. ISSN 2083-4624.
Further reading
- Anfosso, Milena (2021). "Le Phrygien: une langue balkanique perdue en Anatolie" [Phrygian: a Balkan Language Lost in Anatolia]. Anatolie: de l'époque archaïque à Byzance. Actes de la journée doctorale organisée à l'université de Paris-Sorbonne dirigée par Anaïs Lamesa, Giusto Traina. Dialogues d'histoire ancienne (in French). Vol. 22. Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté. pp. 37–66. doi:10.3917/dha.hs22.0037. ISSN 2108-1433.
- Blažek, Václav (2005). "Paleo-Balkanian Languages I: Hellenic Languages" (PDF). Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty brněnské univerzity. Vol. 10. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. pp. 15–33. ISBN 80-210-3784-9.
- Brixhe, Claude (2002). "Interactions between Greek and Phrygian under the Roman Empire". In Adams, J. N.; Janse, Mark (eds.). Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Text. Oxford University Press. pp. 246–266.
- Fortson, Benjamin W. (2011). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Blackwell. pp. 203, 252.
- Masson, Olivier (1991). "Anatolian Languages". In Boardman, John; Edwards, I. E. S. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 668–9.
- Woudhuizen, Fred C. (2008–2009). "Phrygian & Greek" (PDF). Talanta, Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society. Vol. 40–41. pp. 181–217. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 April 2014.
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Graeco Phrygian ˌ ɡ r iː k oʊ ˈ f r ɪ dʒ i en is a proposed subgroup of the Indo European language family which comprises the Hellenic and Phrygian languages Graeco PhrygianGreco Phrygian proposed Geographic distributionSouthern Balkans Anatolia now Turkey and CyprusLinguistic classificationIndo EuropeanGraeco PhrygianProto languageProto Graeco PhrygianSubdivisionsHellenic Phrygian Language codesISO 639 3 Glottologgrae1234 Modern consensus views Greek as the closest relative of Phrygian a position that is supported by Brixhe Neumann Matzinger Woodhouse Ligorio Lubotsky and Obrador Cursach 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 EvidenceThe linguist Claude Brixhe points to the following features Greek and Phrygian are known to have in common and in common with no other language a certain class of masculine nouns in the nominative singular ending in s a certain class of denominal verbs the pronoun auto the participial suffix meno the stem kako and the conjunction ai Obrador Cursach 2019 has presented further phonetic morphological and lexical evidence supporting a close relation between Greek and Phrygian as seen in the following tables that compare the different isoglosses between Phrygian Greek Armenian Albanian and Indo Iranian Phonetic Phrygian features Greek Armenian Albanian Indo IranianCentum treatment CRh C gt CRōC Loss of s Prothetic vowels ih gt iya ki gt s m gt n M gt T Morphological Phrygian features Greek Armenian Albanian Indo IranianConditional ai e augment e demonstrative eh s masc t enlargement verbs in e yo verbs in o yo dhn dhh s o eu eu gu her mo gu neh ik h eu to h nh mn meǵh s meh mh no ni y ni t or toy toi Highlighted text indicates that borrowing cannot be totally ruled out Lexical Phrygian features Greek Armenian Albanian Indo Iranian bhoh t bheh t h en men ǵhl h ro kako ken koru mōro sleh gu Highlighted text indicates that borrowing cannot be totally ruled out Other proposalsGreek has also been variously grouped with Armenian and Indo Iranian Graeco Armenian Graeco Aryan Ancient Macedonian Hellenic and more recently Messapic Greek and Ancient Macedonian are most often classified under Hellenic at other times ancient Macedonian is seen as a Greek dialect and thus Hellenic is posited to consist of only Greek dialects The linguist Vaclav Blazek states that in regard to the classification of these languages the lexical corpora do not allow any quantification see corpus and quantitative comparative linguistics ReferencesBrixhe Claude 2008 Phrygian In Woodard Roger D ed The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor Cambridge University Press p 72 ISBN 978 0 521 68496 5 Unquestionably however Phrygian is most closely linked with Greek Woodhouse 2009 p 171 This question is of course only just separable from the question of which languages within Indo European are most closely related to Phrygian which has also been hotly debated A turning point in this debate was Kortlandt s 1988 demonstration on the basis of shared sound changes that Thraco Armenian had separated from Phrygian and other originally Balkan languages at an early stage The consensus has now returned to regarding Greek as the closest relative Ligorio amp Lubotsky 2018 p 1816 Phrygian is most closely related to Greek The two languages share a few unique innovations It is therefore very likely that both languages emerged from a single language which was spoken in the Balkans at the end of the third millennium BCE Obrador Cursach 2018 p 102 Furthermore if Phrygian were not so poorly attested perhaps we could reconstruct a Proto Greco Phrygian stage of both languages Obrador Cursach 2020 pp 238 239 To the best of our current knowledge Phrygian was closely related to Greek This affirmation is consistent with the vision offered by Neumann 1988 23 Brixhe 2006 and Ligorio and Lubotsky 2018 1816 and with many observations given by ancient authors Both languages share 34 of the 36 features considered in this paper some of them of great significance The available data suggest that Phrygian and Greek coexisted broadly from pre historic to historic times and both belong to a common linguistic area Brixhe 2006 39 44 Obrador Cursach 2020 p 243 With the current state of our knowledge we can affirm that Phrygian is closely related to Greek This is not a surprising conclusion ancient sources and modern scholars agree that Phrygians did not live far from Greece in pre historic times Moreover the last half century of scientific study of Phrygian has approached both languages and developed the hypothesis of a Proto Greco Phrygian language to the detriment to other theories like Phrygio Armenian or Thraco Phrygian Obrador Cursach 2020 pp 234 238 Blazek Vaclav November 2005 On the internal classification of Indo European languages survey PDF Linguistica Online 6 ISSN 1801 5336 BibliographyLigorio Orsat Lubotsky Alexander 2018 Phrygian In Jared Klein Brian Joseph Matthias Fritz eds Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo European Linguistics HSK 41 3 Berlin Boston De Gruyter Mouton pp 1816 1831 doi 10 1515 9783110542431 022 hdl 1887 63481 ISBN 9783110542431 S2CID 242082908 Obrador Cursach Bartomeu 2018 Lexicon of the Phrygian Inscriptions PDF University of Barcelona Faculty of Philology Department of Classical Romance and Semitic Philology Obrador Cursach Bartomeu 2020 On the place of Phrygian among the Indo European languages Journal of Language Relationship 17 3 4 233 245 doi 10 31826 jlr 2019 173 407 S2CID 215769896 Woodhouse Robert 2009 An overview of research on Phrygian from the nineteenth century to the present day Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 126 1 167 188 doi 10 2478 v10148 010 0013 x ISSN 2083 4624 Further readingAnfosso Milena 2021 Le Phrygien une langue balkanique perdue en Anatolie Phrygian a Balkan Language Lost in Anatolia Anatolie de l epoque archaique a Byzance Actes de la journee doctorale organisee a l universite de Paris Sorbonne dirigee par Anais Lamesa Giusto Traina Dialogues d histoire ancienne in French Vol 22 Besancon Presses Universitaires de Franche Comte pp 37 66 doi 10 3917 dha hs22 0037 ISSN 2108 1433 Blazek Vaclav 2005 Paleo Balkanian Languages I Hellenic Languages PDF Sbornik praci Filozoficke fakulty brnenske univerzity Vol 10 Brno Masarykova univerzita pp 15 33 ISBN 80 210 3784 9 Brixhe Claude 2002 Interactions between Greek and Phrygian under the Roman Empire In Adams J N Janse Mark eds Bilingualism in Ancient Society Language Contact and the Written Text Oxford University Press pp 246 266 Fortson Benjamin W 2011 Indo European Language and Culture An Introduction 2nd ed Blackwell pp 203 252 Masson Olivier 1991 Anatolian Languages In Boardman John Edwards I E S eds The Cambridge Ancient History Cambridge University Press pp 668 9 Woudhuizen Fred C 2008 2009 Phrygian amp Greek PDF Talanta Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society Vol 40 41 pp 181 217 Archived from the original PDF on 7 April 2014 This Indo European languages related article is a stub You can help Wikipedia by expanding it vte
