The Celtiberian script is a

Paleohispanic script The Paleohispanic scripts are the writing systems created in the Iberian peninsula before the Latin alphabet became the main script. Most of them are unusual in that they are semi-syllabic rather than purely alphabetic, despite having s ...

that was the main

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...

of the

Celtiberian language Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula between the headwaters of the Douro, Tagus, Júcar and Turia rivers and the Ebr ...

, an extinct

Continental Celtic The Continental Celtic languages are the now-extinct group of the Celtic languages that were spoken on the continent of Europe and in central Anatolia, as distinguished from the Insular Celtic languages of the British Isles and Brittany. ''Contine ...

language, which was also occasionally written using the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

. This script is a direct adaptation of the

northeastern Iberian script The northeastern Iberian script, also known as Levantine Iberian or Iberian, was the main means of written expression of the Iberian language. The language is also expressed by the southeastern Iberian script and the Greco-Iberian alphabet ...

, the most frequently used of the

Iberian scripts The Iberian scripts are the Paleohispanic scripts that were used to represent the extinct Iberian language. Most of them are typologically unusual in that they are semi-syllabic rather than purely alphabetic.Ferrer, J., Moncunill, N., V ...

Origins

All the Paleohispanic scripts, with the exception of the Greco-Iberian alphabet, share a common distinctive typological characteristic: they represent syllabic values for the

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), li ...

s, and monophonemic values for the rest of

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

and

vowels A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

. They are thus to be classed as neither

alphabets An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...

nor

syllabaries In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (optiona ...

; rather, they are mixed scripts normally identified as

semi-syllabaries A semi-syllabary is a writing system that behaves partly as an alphabet and partly as a syllabary. The main group of semi-syllabic writing are the Paleohispanic scripts of ancient Spain, a group of semi-syllabaries that transform redundant plosi ...

. There is no agreement about how the Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries originated; some researchers conclude that they derive only from the

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician al ...

, while others believe the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

was also involved.

Typology and variants

The basic Celtiberian signary contains 26 signs rather than the 28 signs of the original model, the

, since the

Celtiberians The Celtiberians were a group of Celts and Celticized peoples inhabiting an area in the central-northeastern Iberian Peninsula during the final centuries BCE. They were explicitly mentioned as being Celts by several classic authors (e.g. Strab ...

omitted one of the two rhotic and one of the three nasals. The remaining 26 signs comprised 5

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

s, 15 syllabic signs and 6 consonants (one

lateral Lateral is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Healthcare *Lateral (anatomy), an anatomical direction * Lateral cricoarytenoid muscle * Lateral release (surgery), a surgical procedure on the side of a kneecap Phonetics *Lateral co ...

, two

sibilants Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...

, one rhotic and two nasals). The sign equivalent to Iberian ''s'' is transcribed as ''z'' in Celtiberian, because it is assumed that it sometimes expresses the fricative result of an ancient dental stop (''d''), while the Iberian sign ''ś'' is transcribed as ''s''. As for the use of the nasal signs, there are two variants of the Celtiberian script: In the eastern variant, the excluded nasal sign was the Iberian sign ''ḿ'', while in the western variant, the excluded nasal sign was the Iberian sign ''m''. This is interpreted as evidence of a double origin of the Celtiberian script. Like one variant of the

, the western variant of Celtiberian shows evidence of having allowed the

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

stops ''g'' and ''d'' to be differentiated from their respective

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...

counterparts, ''k'' and ''t'', by adding a stroke to the voiceless signs. This is known as the ‘dual system’ in Paleohispanic scripts, which otherwise do not distinguish between pairs of voiceless and voiced stops (''p:b, t:d'' and ''k:g'').

Location of findings

The Celtiberian inscriptions have been found mainly in the

Ebro , name_etymology = , image = Zaragoza shel.JPG , image_size = , image_caption = The Ebro River in Zaragoza , map = SpainEbroBasin.png , map_size = , map_caption = The Ebro ...

valley and near the sources of the

Tagus The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections, to e ...

and

Douro The Douro (, , ; es, Duero ; la, Durius) is the highest-flow river of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises near Duruelo de la Sierra in Soria Province, central Spain, meanders south briefly then flows generally west through the north-west part o ...

rivers, where

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

sources place the Celtiberian people. The Celtiberian inscriptions were made on different types of objects (

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

and

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

coins A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, ...

receptacles,

plaques and

tessera A tessera (plural: tesserae, diminutive ''tessella'') is an individual tile, usually formed in the shape of a square, used in creating a mosaic. It is also known as an abaciscus or abaculus. Historical tesserae The oldest known tesserae ...

s, amphores, stones, spindle-whorls, etc.). There are just under two hundred surviving inscriptions, one of which is exceptionally long: the third

Botorrita Botorrita is a municipality located in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. Botorrita is known for the archeological artefacts found there, such as the Botorrita plaque The Botorrita plaques are four bronze plaques discovered in Botorrit ...

bronze plaque (

Zaragoza Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Province of Zaragoza, Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Ara ...

) with more than three thousand signs containing a census of nearly 250 people. Almost always the direction of the writing is left to right. The fact that nearly all the Celtiberian inscriptions were found out of archaeological context does not allow a precise chronology to be established, but it seems that the earliest inscriptions in the Celtiberian script date from the 2nd century BCE while the latest ones date from the 1st century BCE. Image:Zaragoza - Museo - Bronce epigráfico.jpg, Cortono plaque. Unknown provenance. Western signary. Image:Bronce luzaga.jpg, Luzaga plaque (

Guadalajara Guadalajara ( , ) is a metropolis in western Mexico and the capital of the state of Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 1,385,629 people, making it the 7th largest city by population in Mexico, while the Guadalaj ...

). Western signary. Image:Tésera hospitalidad (Uxama).jpg, Uxama

(Osma,

Soria Soria () is a municipality and a Spanish city, located on the Douro river in the east of the autonomous community of Castile and León and capital of the province of Soria. Its population is 38,881 ( INE, 2017), 43.7% of the provincial populati ...

. Western signary. Image:Botorrita 1.jpg, First Botorrita plaque (

). Eastern signary. Image:Zaragoza - Museo - Grafito 01.jpg, Another Botorrita plaque (

). Eastern signary. Image:Tessera Celtiberian (unknown).jpg, Fröhner

. Unknown provenance. Eastern signary.

Notes

Bibliography

* Ferrer i Jané, Joan (2005)
«Novetats sobre el sistema dual de diferenciació gràfica de les oclusives sordes i sonores»
''Palaeohispanica'' 5, pp. 957–982. * Hoz, Javier de (2005): «La lengua y la escritura celtibéricas», ''Celtiberos. Tras la estela de Numancia'', pp. 417–426. * Jordán, Carlos (2004): ''Celtibérico'', Zaragoza. * Jordán, Carlos (2005)
«¿Sistema dual de escritura en celtibérico?»
''Palaeohispanica'' 5, pp. 1013–1030. * Rodríguez Ramos, Jesús (1997): «Sobre el origen de la escritura celtibérica», ''Kalathos'' 16, pp. 189–197. * Untermann, Jürgen (1997): ''Monumenta Linguarum Hispanicarum. IV Die tartessischen, keltiberischen und lusitanischen Inschriften'', Wiesbaden. * Schmoll, Ulrich (1960) : «Die iberischen und keltiberischen Nasalzeichen», ''KZ'' 76, 280-295. * Villar, Francisco (1993): «Las silibantes en celtibérico», ''Lengua y cultura en la Hispania prerromana'', pp. 773–812. * Villar, Francisco (1995): ''Estudios de celtibérico y toponimia prerromana'', Salamanca.

External links

The letters of the Celtiberian scriptA transcription of a Botorrita plaque
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20071027134719/http://www.webpersonal.net/jrr/ib5_en.htm The Celtiberian script - Jesús Rodríguez Ramos* {{DEFAULTSORT:Celtiberian Script Writing systems Celtic art Obsolete writing systems Paleohispanic languages Palaeohispanic writing