The Phrygian language () was the

Indo-European language The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia ( ...

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. Ancient Greek authors used "Phrygian" as an umbrella term t ...

, spoken in

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

(in modern

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

), during

classical antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...

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

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

authors used "Phrygian" as an

umbrella term Hypernymy and hyponymy are the wikt:Wiktionary:Semantic relations, semantic relations between a generic term (''hypernym'') and a more specific term (''hyponym''). The hypernym is also called a ''supertype'', ''umbrella term'', or ''blanket 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 Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

observed that some Phrygian words resembled

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

ones. 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 Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

and

Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

. Evidence of a Thraco-

separation from Phrygian and other

Paleo-Balkan languages The Paleo-Balkan languages are a geographical grouping of various Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans and surrounding areas in ancient times. In antiquity, Dacian, Greek, Illyrian, Messapic, Paeonian, Phrygian and Thracian wer ...

at an early stage, Phrygian's classification as a centum 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 Lexical may refer to: Linguistics * Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language * Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification * Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge * 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 (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

and Hesychius have provided us with a few dozen words assumed to be Phrygian, so-called

glosses A gloss is a brief notation, especially a marginal or interlinear one, of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text or in the reader's language if that is different. A collection of glosses is a ''glossar ...

. In modern times the first monument with a Phrygian text, found at

Ortaköy Ortaköy (, ''Middle Village)'' is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Beşiktaş, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 9,121 (2024). It is on the European shore of the Bosphorus. it was originally a small fishing villag ...

(classical

Orcistus Orcistus or Orkistos () 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, Afyonkarahissar, and previously Alikel Yaila. City ...

), was described in 1752. In 1800 at

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

(classical

Nakoleia Nakoleia () also known as Nakolaion (Νακώλαιον), List of Latinised names, Latinized as Nacolia or Nacolea, was an ancient and medieval city in Phrygia. It corresponds to present-day Seyitgazi, Eskişehir Province in the Central Anatolia ...

) two more inscriptions were discovered. 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 Midas (; ) was a king of Phrygia with whom many myths became associated, as well as two later members of the Phrygian royal house. His father was Gordias, and his mother was Cybele. The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek m ...

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

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient 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. Despite doubts about his autho ...

's world and the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

, 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. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

. 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

, which led to some false conclusions. After 1880, the Scottish Bible scholar

William Mitchell Ramsay Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (15 March 185120 April 1939) was a British archaeologist and New Testament scholar. He was the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor, and a leading scholar in the study of the New Testament. R ...

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 northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

sound change In historical linguistics, a sound change 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 is placed among the Palaeo-Balkan languages, either through areal contact or genetic relationship. Phrygian shares important features mainly with

, but also with

and

. Also

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

and

Thracian The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared between north-eastern Greece, ...

, ancient languages of the Balkans, are often regarded as being closely related to Phrygian, however they are considered problematic sources for comparison due to their scarce attestation. 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, 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 Kortlandt is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Adriaan Kortlandt Adriaan Kortlandt (25 January 1918, Rotterdam – 18 October 2009, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Ethology, ethologist. He has been described together with Vernon Reyno ...

(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 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, ...

, 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 language, 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 Gr ...

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 (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

(grave mounds) at

Gordion Gordion (Phrygian language, Phrygian: ; ; or ; ) was the capital city of ancient Phrygia. It was located at the site of modern Yassıhüyük, Polatlı, Yassıhüyük, about southwest of Ankara (capital of Turkey), in the immediate vicinity of ...

(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 BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...

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

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; , ''Phrygía'') was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Ph ...

, 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 (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

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, memevais, proitavos kziyanaveyos sikeneman edaes''; 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 abjad (consonantal alphabet) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions fo ...

. 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 l ...

). 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 (, ), lip ...

s, similar to

Grimm's Law Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or 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 first millennium BC, first d ...

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 In phonetics, aspiration is a strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with their ...

devoicing In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or surdization. Most commonl ...

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 (, ), lips ...

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 ...

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 Velar may refer to: * Velar consonant Velar consonants 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 (also known as the "velum"). Since the velar region ...

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 approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...

Grammar

What can be recovered of the grammatical structure of Phrygian was typically

. Declensions and conjugations are strikingly similar to ancient Greek.

Nouns

Phrygian nouns belong to three

genders Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other than the ...

: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Forms are singular or plural;

dual Dual or Duals may refer to: Paired/two things * Dual (mathematics), a notion of paired concepts that mirror one another ** Dual (category theory), a formalization of mathematical duality *** see more cases in :Duality theories * Dual number, a nu ...

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 E ...

accusative In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive 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", " ...

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 ...

, 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 "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this exampl ...

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 (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) 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 part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...

s are

demonstrative Demonstratives (list of glossing abbreviations, 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 ...

relative Relative may refer to: General use *Kinship and family, the principle binding the most basic social units of society. If two people are connected by circumstances of birth, they are said to be ''relatives''. Philosophy *Relativism, the concept t ...

, 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 An intensive pronoun (or self-intensifier) adds emphasis to a statement; for example, "I did it ''myself''." While English intensive pronouns (e.g., ''myself'', ''yourself'', ''himself, herself'', ''ourselves'', ''yourselves'', ''themselves'') use ...

''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 for ...

''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 ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or le ...

''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 o ...

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

verbal system. Three tenses are known:

present The present is the period of time that is occurring now. The present is contrasted with the past, the period of time that has already occurred; and the future, the period of time that has yet to occur. It is sometimes represented as a hyperplan ...

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 the ...

(with augment and ''-s-'' infix), and

perfect Perfect commonly refers to: * Perfection; completeness, and excellence * Perfect (grammar), a grammatical category in some languages Perfect may also refer to: Film and television * ''Perfect'' (1985 film), a romantic drama * ''Perfect'' (20 ...

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 currently ex ...

forms have not yet been discovered. Neither has a

pluperfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, characterizes certain verb forms and grammatical tenses involving an action from an antecedent point in time. Examples in English are: "we ''had arrived''" ...

; 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 doing (something)" o ...

. There are two

voices Voices or The Voices may refer to: Film and television * ''Voices'' (1920 film), by Chester M. De Vonde, with Diana Allen * ''Voices'' (1973 film), a British horror film * ''Voices'' (1979 film), a film by Robert Markowitz * ''Voices'' (1 ...

active Active may refer to: Music * ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea * "Active" (song), a 2024 song by Asake and Travis Scott from Asake's album ''Lungu Boy'' * Active Records, a record label Ships * ''Active'' (ship), several com ...

and mediopassive. 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 sentence Dec ...

and imperative are clearly documented, but suspected

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

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 ...

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

Participle In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) 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 a verb and used as an adject ...

s are present, most of them perfect passive forms with

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The cla ...

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 that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all ...

s are not known. As to

person A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who 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 suc ...

and

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

, most finite forms are 3rd person singular, a few 3rd person plural, and only very few 1st person singular. Examples: The augment Phrygian seems to exhibit, is like

, Indo-Iranian, and

; cf. , probably corresponding to

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

' (' with loss of the final ''t'', '')'', 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 Subject ( "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness, or ...

–

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 a ...

–

Verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

(" 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 but ...

(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. In languages using it, the locative case may perform a function which in English would be expressed with such prepositions as "in", "on", "at", and " ...

. 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, Egypt, Sais in the Nile delta between 664 and 610 BC. He was installed by Ashurbanipal of the Neo- ...

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

original language The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeologi ...

. 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 Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya'' (also spelled ''Luwia'' or ''Luvia'') – ...

(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 (; – ), was a Christian theology, Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A ...

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

Orphic Orphism 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 Orpheus, who descended into the Greek underworld and returned ...

ritual. The Greek theonym

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

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 Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

records that according to

Demosthenes Demosthenes (; ; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide insight into the politics and cu ...

, Zeus was known as ''Tios'' in

Bithynia Bithynia (; ) 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 southwest, Paphlagonia to the northeast a ...

. 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 BC 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 () was a Greek grammarian who, probably in the 5th or 6th century AD, compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived, probably by absorbing the works of earlier lexicographers. The ...

mentions a ''Bagaios, Phrygian Zeus'' () and interprets the name as 'giver of good things'. Mallory and

Adams Adams may refer to: * For persons, see Adams (surname) Places United States *Adams, California *Adams, California, former name of Corte Madera, California * Adams, Decatur County, Indiana *Adams, Kentucky *Adams, Massachusetts, a New England to ...

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 (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

'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 is a form of meter used in Ancient Greek epic and didactic poetry as well as in epic, didactic, satirical, and pastoral Latin poetry. Its name is derived from Greek (, "finger") and (, "six"). Dactylic hexameter consists o ...

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 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., the vent ...

are in boldface): : ιος νι σεμουν κνουμανει κακουν αδδακετ αινι τεαμας : με ζεμελως κε δεως κε Τιη τιτετικμενος ειτου. :: ios ni semoun knoumanei kakoun addaket aini teamas :: me zemelōs ke deōs ke tiē titetikmenos eitou. ::: ''Whoever to this tomb harm does, or to the grave,'' ::: ''among humans and gods by Zeus accursed let him be.''

Alliteration Alliteration is the repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " Pe ...

''('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 municipality and district of Denizli Province, Turkey. Its area is 362 km2, and its population is 9,448 (2022). Güney district area neighbors those of four other districts of the same province from east to west, clockwise Buldan, ...

: : '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

and Indo-Iranian:

Footnotes

References

* * * * * * * * * * *

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 that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

Unclassified Indo-European languages