The Phrygian language () was the

Indo-European language The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

of the

Phrygians The Phrygians ( Greek: Φρύγες, ''Phruges'' or ''Phryges'') were an ancient Indo-European speaking people, who inhabited central-western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) in antiquity. They were related to the Greeks. Ancient Greek authors use ...

, spoken in

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

(modern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

), during

classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...

(c. 8th century BC to 5th century AD). Phrygian ethno-linguistic homogeneity is debatable.

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

authors used "Phrygian" as an

umbrella term In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In othe ...

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 Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

observed that some Phrygian words resembled

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 ...

ones. Because of the fragmentary evidence of Phrygian, its exact position within the Indo-European language family is uncertain. Phrygian shares important features with Greek and Armenian. Evidence of a Thraco-Armenian separation from Phrygian and other

Paleo-Balkan languages The Paleo-Balkan languages or Palaeo-Balkan languages is a grouping of various extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans and surrounding areas in ancient times. Paleo-Balkan studies are obscured by the scarce attestation of ...

at an early stage, Phrygian's classification as a

centum Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An e ...

language, and the high frequency of

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

, 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 Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

and Hesychius have provided us with a few dozen words assumed to be Phrygian, so-called glosses. In modern times the first monument with a Phrygian text, found at

Ortaköy Ortaköy ( ''Middle Village)'' is a neighbourhood within the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the European shore of the Bosphorus. it was originally a small fishing village, known in Greek as Agios Fokas (Άγιος Φωκάς) in t ...

(classical

Orcistus Orcistus or Orkistos ( grc, Ὀρκιστός) was a city originally in the northeast of ancient Phrygia and later a bishopric in the Roman province of Galatia Secunda, situated south of the town now called Ortaköy and previously Alikel Yaila. ...

), was described in 1752. In 1800 at

Yazılıkaya :'' Yazılıkaya, Eskişehir, also called Midas City, is a village with Phrygian ruins.'' Yazılıkaya ( tr, Inscribed rock) was a sanctuary of Hattusa, the capital city of the Hittite Empire, today in the Çorum Province, Turkey. Rock reliefs ar ...

(classical

Nakoleia Nakoleia ( el, Νακώλεια and Νακόλεια) also known as Nakolaion (Νακώλαιον), Latinized as Nacolia or Nacolea, was an ancient and medieval city in Phrygia. It corresponds to present-day Seyitgazi, Eskişehir Province in th ...

) two more inscriptions were discovered. On one of them the word ΜΙΔΑΙ, '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 Midas (; grc-gre, Μίδας) was the name of a king in Phrygia with whom several myths became associated, as well as two later members of the Phrygian royal house. The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ...

. Later, when Western archeologists, historians and other scholars began to travel through Anatolia to become acquainted with the geographical background of

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

's world and the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

, more monuments were discovered. By 1862 sixteen Phrygian inscriptions were known, among them a few Greek-Phrygian

bilinguals Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Eu ...

. This allowed German scholar

Andreas David Mordtmann Andreas ( el, Ἀνδρέας) is a name usually given to males in Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Armenia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Finland, Flanders, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. The name ...

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. After 1880, the Scottish Bible scholar

William Mitchell Ramsay Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, FBA (15 March 185120 April 1939) was a Scottish archaeologist and New Testament scholar. By his death in 1939 he had become the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor and a leading scholar in th ...

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 The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

sound change A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...

laws. The alphabet is now well-known, though minor revisions of the rarer signs of the alphabet are still possible, one sign ( PhrygianYodL2R

= /j/, transcribed ''y'') was only securely identified in 1969.

Classification

Phrygian is a member of the

linguistic family, but because of the fragmentary evidence, its exact position within that family is uncertain. Phrygian shares important features with Greek and Armenian. Between the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, Phrygian was mostly considered a

satem language Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An e ...

, and thus closer to Armenian and

Thracian The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied ...

, 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 The Paleo-Balkan languages or Palaeo-Balkan languages is a grouping of various extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans and surrounding areas in ancient times. Paleo-Balkan studies are obscured by the scarce attestation o ...

from an early stage. 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. An alternative theory, suggested by

Eric P. Hamp Eric Pratt Hamp (November 16, 1920 – February 17, 2019) was an American linguist widely respected as a leading authority on Indo-European linguistics, with particular interests in Celtic languages and Albanian. Unlike many Indo-Europeanists, wh ...

, is that Phrygian was most closely related to

Italo-Celtic In historical linguistics, Italo-Celtic is a hypothetical grouping of the Italic and Celtic branches of the Indo-European language family on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others. There is controversy about the causes o ...

languages.

Inscriptions

The Phrygian epigraphical material is divided into two distinct subcorpora, Old Phrygian and New 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

and beyond. They were written in the

Phrygian alphabet The Phrygian alphabet is the script used in the earliest Phrygian texts. It dates back to the 8th century BCE and was used until the fourth century BCE ("Old-Phrygian" inscriptions), after which it was replaced by the common Greek alphabet ("New ...

between 800 and 330 BCE. The ''Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes'' (CIPPh) and its supplements 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 A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built ...

(grave mounds) at

Gordion Gordion ( Phrygian: ; el, Γόρδιον, translit=Górdion; tr, Gordion or ; la, Gordium) was the capital city of ancient Phrygia. It was located at the site of modern Yassıhüyük, about southwest of Ankara (capital of Turkey), in the ...

(Yassıhüyük, the so-called " Midas Mound") and Bayındır (East Lycia). New Phrygian is attested in 117 funerary inscriptions, mostly curses against desecrators added after a Greek

epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...

. New Phrygian was written in 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 ...

between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE and is restricted to the western part of ancient

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; grc, Φρυγία, ''Phrygía'' ) was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empir ...

, in central

. 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 Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, FBA (15 March 185120 April 1939) was a Scottish archaeologist and New Testament scholar. By his death in 1939 he had become the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor and a leading scholar in t ...

(ca. 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 Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...

conquest. It is considered the first Phrygian text to be inscribed with the

. 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. File:Map Phrygian inscriptions.png, Map showing where Phrygian inscriptions have been found. File:MidasSehri.TombDetail.jpg, 6th century BCE inscription with the

from the Midas Tomb, Midas City: ΒΑΒΑ: ΜΕΜΕϜΑΙΣ: ΠΡΟΙΤΑϜΟΣ: ΚΦΙJΑΝΑϜΕJΟΣ: ΣΙΚΕΝΕΜΑΝ: ΕΔΑΕΣ (Baba, advisor, leader from Tyana, dedicated this niche). The last mentions of the language date to the 5th century CE, and it was likely extinct by the 7th century CE.

Alphabet

From ca. 800 till 300 BCE, Phrygians used the Old-Phrygian alphabet of nineteen letters derived 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 ...

. This script was usually written from left to right ("dextroverse"). The signs of this script are: About 15 percent of the inscriptions are written from right to left ("sinistroverse"), like Phoenician; in those cases, the signs are drawn mirrored:... PhrygianGammaR2L

etc. instead of PhrygianAlphaL2R

BΓ.... A few dozen inscriptions are written in alternating directions (

boustrophedon Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the le ...

). From ca. 300 BCE, this script was replaced by the

. A single inscription dates from ca. 300 BCE (sometimes called "Middle-Phrygian"), all other texts are much later, from the 1st till 3rd centuries CE (New-Phrygian). The Greek letters Θ, Ξ, Φ, Χ, and Ψ were rarely used—mainly for Greek names and loanwords (Κλευμαχοι, ''to Kleomakhos''; θαλαμει, ''funerary chamber'').

Phonology

It has long been claimed that Phrygian exhibits a

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, similar to

Grimm's Law Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Gr ...

in Germanic and, more to the point, sound laws found in

Proto-Armenian Proto-Armenian is the earlier, unattested stage of the Armenian language which has been reconstructed by linguists. As Armenian is the only known language of its branch of the Indo-European languages, the comparative method cannot be used to re ...

; i.e., voicing of PIE aspirates, devoicing of PIE

voiced stop 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 (, ), lips ...

s and aspiration of

voiceless stop 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 (, ), lip ...

s. This hypothesis was rejected by Lejeune (1979) and Brixhe (1984) but revived by Lubotsky (2004) and Woodhouse (2006), who argue that there is evidence of a partial shift of

obstruent An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as ...

series; i.e., voicing of PIE aspirates (''*bʱ'' > ''b'') and devoicing of PIE voiced stops (''*d'' > ''t''). The

affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...

s ''ts'' and ''dz'' may have developed from

velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...

s before

front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...

Grammar

The grammatical structure of Phrygian, what can be recovered of it, was typically

. Declensions and verbal conjugations are strikingly similar to ancient Greek.

Nouns

Phrygian nouns belong to three

genders Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...

; masculine, feminine, and neuter. Forms are singular or plural; dual forms are not known. Four cases are known:

nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...

accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...

, and

dative In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...

Substantives

Nouns belong to three stem groups: ''o''-stems, ''a''-stems, and consonant stems ("''C''-stems"); the latter group also includes ''i''- and ''u''-stems. In addition there is a group of personal names with an e-stem. The paradigm for nouns is as follows (to keep the paradigm clear, the many minor spelling variants, including New-Phrygian ones in Greek characters, are omitted): Examples: * ''a''-stem: μανκα 'manka''(''stele''): Nom. μανκα 'manka'' Acc. μανκαν 'mankan'' Dat. μανκαι 'mankai'' μανκα, μανκης, μανκε. * ''o''-stem: ''devos'' ('god', cf. Greek θεός): Nom. ''devos''; Acc. (or Gen.?) ''devun''; Pl. Dat. δεως 'deos'' διως, δεος, δδεω, διος, δυως. * ''C''- (''r''-)stem: ''daker'' (meaning not clear): Nom. ''daker'', δακαρ; Acc. ''dakeran''; Pl. Nom. δακερης 'dakeres'' Pl. Acc. ''dakerais''. * ''C''- (''n''-)stem: ορουαν 'orouan''('keeper, protector'): Nom. ορουεναν 'orouenan'' Acc. ορουαν 'orouan'' Gen. ορουενος 'orouenos'' * ''C''- (''k''-)stem: ''knays'' ('woman, wife', cf. Greek γυνή): Nom. ''knays, knais''; Acc. κναικαν 'knaikan'' Gen. κναικος 'knaikos'' Pl. Nom. ''knaykes''. * ''i''-stem: *''Tis'' ('Zeus'): Acc. Τιαν 'Tian'' Dat. Τιε 'Tie'' Τι, Τιη, Tiei; Gen. Τιος 'Tios'' * ''e''-stem: ''Manes'' ('Manes'): Nom. ''Manes, Mane'', Μανεις; Acc. ''Manin''; Gen. ''Manitos''.

Pronouns

The most frequently used

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...

s are

demonstrative Demonstratives ( abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular fram ...

, relative, and anaphoric. Their declensions are similar to those of nouns. Two rare pronouns, ''autos'' and ''tis'', may be loanwords from Greek. The demonstrative pronoun, ''this'', has a short (''ses'') and a long form (''semoun''). Its declension: There is also a

clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...

particle variant ''s-'', prefixed to names: sManes (''this Manes''). The relative pronoun is ''yos'' (''who, whoever''). Though appearing often, only three different cases are attested. Paradigm: A reduplicated form ''yosyos'', ''whoever'', is also known (cf. Latin ''quisquis''). An anaphoric pronoun is ''tos'' (''the one mentioned, this one, he''). It is often used in the standard expression ιος νι..., τος νι...: ''whoever (damages this tomb), this one (will be damned)''; ''whoever (...), he (...)''. Declension: ''Tos'' has a particle variant, τι, του, ''-t, -τ''. The particles τι and του, used after a demonstrative pronoun, or suffixed to it as ''-t'' or -τ, seem to emphasize the following noun: (''whoever does damage'') σεμουν του κνουμανει, ''to this very tomb''. Another anaphoric pronoun is ''oy'' / ''ioi''. It only occurs as a Dative Singular, ''oy'', ιοι, οι (''to him, to her''). The emphatic pronoun ''autos'' (''the very one, the same''; cf. Greek αὐτός) can also be used anaphorically. Its composite ''ve(n)autos'' is a

reflexive pronoun A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same sentence. In the English language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in ''-self'' or ''-selves'', and refer to a previously n ...

, ''himself'' (Greek ἑαυτός). The

indefinite pronoun An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related form ...

''kos'' (''somebody, something'') is only attested in the nominative singular: masculine kos, κος; neuter kin, κιν. A synonym is the very rare Greek loanword ''tis'' (τις, neuter τι). The

personal Personal may refer to: Aspects of persons' respective individualities * Privacy * Personality * Personal, personal advertisement, variety of classified advertisement used to find romance or friendship Companies * Personal, Inc., a Washington, ...

possessive pronoun A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ow ...

''her'' (only the feminine is attested) is ''va'' (Nom. va, ουα; Acc. ουαν, οαν; Gen. vay).

Adjectives

The declension of adjectival nouns is entirely similar to that of substantives. Examples (note that ''mekas'' corresponds to Greek μέγας, ''big, great'', and that -τετικμενος and γεγρειμενος parallel Greek Perfect Passive participles with reduplication and ending in ''-menos''):

Verbs

Due to the limited textual material, the

conjugation Conjugation or conjugate may refer to: Linguistics *Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form * Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language Mathematics *Complex conjugation, the change ...

of Phrygian verbs can only be determined very incompletely. However, it is clear that it closely resembles the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

verbal system. Three tenses are known:

Present The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is a period of ...

Aorist Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by th ...

(with

augment Augment or augmentation may refer to: Language *Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages * Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...

and ''-s-'' infix), and Perfect.

Future The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that current ...

forms have not yet been discovered. Neither has a

Pluperfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...

; a few forms may be an

Imperfect The imperfect ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to ...

. There are two voices,

Active Active may refer to: Music * ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea * Active Records, a record label Ships * ''Active'' (ship), several commercial ships by that name * HMS ''Active'', the name of various ships of the British Royal ...

and

Mediopassive The mediopassive voice is a grammatical voice that subsumes the meanings of both the middle voice and the passive voice. Description Languages of the Indo-European family (and many others) typically have two or three of the following voices: acti ...

. As to mood,

indicative A realis mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...

and imperative are clearly documented, but suspected

subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality s ...

forms and an

optative The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mood ...

(the latter with typical ''-oi-'' infix) need confirmation.

Participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

s are present, most of them Perfect Passive forms with

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...

and ending in ''-menos''.

Infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is de ...

s are not known. As to

person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

and

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual number ...

, most finite forms are 3rd person Singular, a few 3rd person Plural, and only very few 1st person Singular. Examples: The

Phrygian seems to exhibit, is like

, Indo-Iranian, and Armenian; cf. , probably corresponding to

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

' ('' el, épʰere'' with loss of the final ''t'', '' sa, ábharat)'', although comparison to examples like ''ios... addaket'' 'who does... to', which is not a past tense form (perhaps

), shows that ''-et'' may be from the

(PIE) primary ending .

Syntax

Normal word order in Phrygian sentences is Subject -

Object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...

Verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

(" SOV"). However, if a

direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include b ...

(DO) needs to be emphasized, it may be placed at the head of the sentence, before the subject. Part of an

indirect object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...

(IO) may be placed after the verb. Example: :: The function of the several nominal cases (nominative, accusative, etc.) presents no surprises. The dative is perhaps also used as a

locative In grammar, the locative case ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...

. When the subject of a sentence is compounded of more than one item ("''A and B and C...''"), that vary in gender or number, the verb or

predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...

agrees in gender and number with the ''first'' item (''A'') ( Lubotsky's rection rule). Adjectives follow their noun, except when emphasis is intended.

Vocabulary

Phrygian is attested fragmentarily, known only from a comparatively small corpus of inscriptions. A few hundred Phrygian words are attested; however, the meaning and etymologies of many of these remain unknown. A famous Phrygian word is ''bekos'', meaning 'bread'. According to

(''Histories'' 2.2), Pharaoh

Psammetichus I Wahibre Psamtik I ( Ancient Egyptian: ) was the first pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the Saite period, ruling from the city of Sais in the Nile delta between 664–610 BC. He was installed by Ashurbanipal of the Neo-Assyrian Empir ...

wanted to determine the oldest nation and establish the world's

original language The origin of language (spoken and signed, as well as language-related technological systems such as writing), its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study th ...

. For this purpose, he ordered two children to be reared by a shepherd, forbidding him to let them hear a single word, and charging him to report the children's first utterance. After two years, the shepherd reported that on entering their chamber, the children came up to him, extending their hands, calling ''bekos''. Upon enquiry, the pharaoh discovered that this was the Phrygian word for 'wheat bread', after which the Egyptians conceded that the Phrygian nation was older than theirs. The word ''bekos'' is also attested several times in Palaeo-Phrygian inscriptions on funerary stelae. It may be cognate to the English ''bake'' (PIE *''bʰeh₃g-''). Hittite,

Luwian The Luwians were a group of Anatolian peoples who lived in central, western, and southern Anatolia, in present-day Turkey, during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. They spoke the Luwian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian sub-fam ...

(both also influenced Phrygian morphology), Galatian and Greek (which also exhibits a high amount of isoglosses with Phrygian) all influenced Phrygian vocabulary.Brixhe, Cl. "Le Phrygien". In Fr. Bader (ed.), ''Langues indo-européennes'', pp. 165-178, Paris: CNRS Editions. According to

Clement of Alexandria Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria ( grc , Κλήμης ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς; – ), was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen ...

, the Phrygian word ''bedu'' () meaning 'water' (PIE *''wed-'') appeared in

Orphic Orphism (more rarely Orphicism; grc, Ὀρφικά, Orphiká) is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orphe ...

ritual. The Greek theonym

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek relig ...

appears in Phrygian with the stem ''Ti-'' (genitive ''Tios'' = Greek ''Dios'', from earlier ''*Diwos''; the nominative is unattested); perhaps with the general meaning 'god, deity'. It is possible that ''tiveya'' means 'goddess'. The shift of ''*d'' to ''t'' in Phrygian and the loss of ''*w'' before ''o'' appears to be regular. Stephanus Byzantius records that according to

Demosthenes Demosthenes (; el, Δημοσθένης, translit=Dēmosthénēs; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual pr ...

, Zeus was known as ''Tios'' in

Bithynia Bithynia (; Koine Greek: , ''Bithynía'') was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), adjoining the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwe ...

. Another possible theonym is ''bago-'' (cf. Old Persian ''baga-'',

Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...

'' *bogъ'' "god"), attested as the accusative singular ''bag̣un'' in G-136. Lejeune identified the term as ''*bʰagom'', in the meaning 'a gift, dedication' (PIE ''*bʰag-'' 'to apportion, give a share'). But

Hesychius of Alexandria Hesychius of Alexandria ( grc, Ἡσύχιος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, Hēsýchios ho Alexandreús, lit=Hesychios the Alexandrian) was a Greek grammarian who, probably in the 5th or 6th century AD,E. Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship (2007 ...

mentions a ''Bagaios, Phrygian Zeus'' () and interprets the name as 'giver of good things'. Mallory and Adams agree that the word ''Bagaios'' was an epithet to the Phrygian worship of Zeus that derived from the same root.

Phrygian poetry

Phrygian poetry is rare. The only examples date from after

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

's conquest of Asia Minor (334 BCE), and they probably originated in imitation of Greek metrical epitaphs. The clearest example is the so-called "Middle Phrygian" inscription mentioned above, which consists of six

dactylic hexameter Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable ...

lines. Also, as Lubotsky has proposed, the traditional Phrygian damnation formula on grave monuments may have been slightly reformulated to fit into a two-line hexametric shape (the stress accents, or ictus, on the first syllable of each

dactylus The dactylus is the tip region of the tentacle, tentacular club of cephalopods and of the leg of some crustaceans (see arthropod leg). In cephalopods, the dactylus is narrow and often characterized by the asymmetrical placement of suckers (i.e ...

are in boldface): : ιος νι σεμουν κνουμανει κακουν αδδακετ αινι τεαμας : με ζεμελως κε δεως κε Τιη τιτετικμενος ειτου. :: ''Whoever to this tomb harm does, or to the grave,'' :: ''among humans and gods by Zeus accursed let him be.''

Alliteration Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

''('b-, b-, b-')'' may be intended in a peculiar clause found on two New-Phrygian grave monuments from Erten (near

) and

Güney Güney is a town and district of Denizli Province in the inner Aegean region of Turkey. Güney district area neighbors those of four other districts of the same province from east to west, clockwise Buldan, Akköy, Denizli central district and ...

: : 'If someone damages this grave, then...'':... Βας ιοι βεκος με βερετ. (— pronounced, ''Bas ioi bekos me beret.'') ::''... may '' 'the god''' Bas not bring him bread.'' (''Bas'' is suspected to be a Phrygian fertility god. Note that ''bekos'' is the word for 'bread' given by Herodotus, while ''me'' conforms to Greek μή, 'not', and ''beret'' is cognate with Greek φέρειν, Latin ''ferre'', 'to bear'.Obrador Cursach (2018), pp. 156, 430, 431.)

Isoglosses

Comparison with

, Armenian, Albanian and Indo-Iranian:

References

* * * * *

Notes

External links

Corpus of Phrygian InscriptionsLubotsky's Phrygian Etymological Database (Incomplete)Encyclopædia Britannica - Phrygian LanguageLinguistic Bibliography OnlinePalaeolexicon - Dictionary, History and Translations of the Phrygian LanguageMidas and the Mushki, by Miltiades E. Bolaris (2010)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phrygian Language Languages attested from the 8th century BC Languages extinct in the 5th century Graeco-Phrygian Languages of ancient Anatolia Paleo-Balkan languages Extinct languages of Asia

Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

Unclassified Indo-European languages