The Proto-Ionians are the hypothetical earliest speakers of the Ionic dialects of

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 ...

, chiefly in the works of Jean Faucounau. The relation of Ionic to the other Greek dialects has been subject to some debate. It is mostly grouped with

Arcadocypriot Arcadocypriot, or southern Achaean, was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia, in the central Peloponnese, and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, indicates that they are closely related ...

as opposed to Doric, reflecting two waves of migration into Greece following the

Proto-Greek The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, Ae ...

period, but sometimes also as separate from Arcadocypriot on equal footing with Doric, suggesting three distinct waves of migration.

Position of Ionic Greek

Mainstream Greek linguistics separates the Greek dialects into two large genetic groups, one including

Doric Greek Doric or Dorian (), also known as West Greek, was a group of Ancient Greek dialects; its Variety (linguistics), varieties are divided into the Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. Doric was spoken in a vast area, including northern Greec ...

and the other including both

and

Ionic Greek Ionic or Ionian Greek () was a subdialect of the Eastern or Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek. The Ionic group traditionally comprises three dialectal varieties that were spoken in Euboea (West Ionic), the northern Cyclades (Centr ...

. But alternative approaches proposing three groups are not uncommon; Thumb and Kieckers (1932) propose three groups, classifying Ionic as genetically just as separate from Arcadocypriot as from Doric. Like a few other linguists (Vladimir Georgiev, C. Rhuijgh, P. Léveque, etc.), the bipartite classification is known as the "Risch–Chadwick theory", named after its two famous proponents, Ernst Risch and

John Chadwick John Chadwick, (21 May 1920 – 24 November 1998) was an English linguist and classical scholar who was most notable for the decipherment, with Michael Ventris, of Linear B. Early life, education and wartime service John Chadwick was born at ...

. The "Proto-Ionians" first appear in the work of

Ernst Curtius Ernst Curtius (; 2 September 181411 July 1896) was a German archaeologist, historian and museum director. Biography He was born in Lübeck. On completing his university studies he was chosen by Christian August Brandis, C. A. Brandis to acco ...

(1887), who believed that the Attic-Ionic dialect group was due to an "Ionicization" of Attica by immigration from Ionia in historical times. Curtius hypothesized that there had been a "Proto-Ionian" migration from the Balkans to western Anatolia in the same period that brought the Arcadic dialect (the successor of the

Mycenean Greek Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first attested ...

stage yet undiscovered in the time of Curtius) to mainland Greece. Curtius' hypothesis was endorsed by George Hempl in 1920. Hempl preferred to call these hypothetical, early Anatolian Greeks "Javonians". Hempl attempted to defend a reading of

Hittite cuneiform Hittite cuneiform is the implementation of cuneiform script used in writing the Hittite language. The surviving corpus of Hittite texts is preserved in cuneiform on clay tablets dating to the 2nd millennium BC (roughly spanning the 17th to 1 ...

as Greek, in spite of the establishment of the

Hittite language Hittite (, or ), also known as Nesite (Nešite/Neshite, Nessite), is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a people of Bronze Age Anatolia who created an empire centred on Hattusa, as well as parts of the northern ...

as a separate branch of Indo-European by Hrozný in 1917.

Faucounau

The tripartite theory was revived by amateur linguist Jean Faucounau. In his view, the first Greek settlers in their historical territory were the (Pelasgic) "proto-Ionians", who were separated around 3000 BC from both the proto-

Dorians The Dorians (; , , singular , ) were one of the four major ethnic groups into which the Greeks, Hellenes (or Greeks) of Classical Greece divided themselves (along with the Aeolians, Achaeans (tribe), Achaeans, and Ionians). They are almost alw ...

and the proto- Mycenaeans. Faucounau traces this three-wave model to similar views put forward by

Paul Kretschmer Paul Kretschmer (2 May 1866 – 9 March 1956) was a German linguist who studied the earliest history and interrelations of the Indo-European languages and showed how they were influenced by non-Indo-European languages, such as Etruscan. Biogr ...

in the 1890s and the 1900s (''i.e.'', before the decipherment of

Linear B Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...

), with a modification: the (proto-Ionic) First wave came by sea, the "Proto-Ionians" settling first in the Cycladic Islands, then in Euboea and Attica. The last two waves are the generally accepted arrival of the Mycenaean Greeks (the linguistic predecessors of the Arcadocypriot speakers) in around 1700 BC and the

Dorian invasion The Dorian invasion (or Dorian migration) is an ancient Greek myth and discredited archaeological hypothesis describing the movement of the Dorian people into the Peloponnese region of Greece. According to the myth, the Dorians migrated from c ...

around 1100 BC. Following Georgiev, Faucounau makes three arguments for the proto-Ionic language. The first is the explanation of certain Mycenaean forms as loan-words from the proto-Ionians already present in Greece: he asserts that

digamma Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an Archaic Greek alphabets, archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6 (number), 6. Whe ...

is unexpectedly absent from some Mycenaean words, the occasional resolution of

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. ...

vocalic ''r'' to ''-or/ro-'' instead of ''-ar/ra-''; ''to-pe-za'' for τράπεζα, and the explanation of Mycenaean ''pa-da-yeu'' as Greek παδάω/πηδάω, "spring leap, bound", which he interprets as both

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

with, and having the same meaning as, English ''paddle''. The second argument is a refinement of a long-established argument in

archaeoastronomy Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cultur ...

, developed most recently by Michael Ovenden, which considers the motion of the North Pole with respect to the fixed stars, because of the

precession Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body. In an appropriate reference frame it can be defined as a change in the first Euler angle, whereas the third Euler angle defines the rotation itself. In o ...

of the

equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun appears directly above the equator, rather than to its north or south. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise directly east and set directly west. This occurs twice each year, arou ...

es. Ovenden concluded, from the slant of the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

s in the present sky and the hypothesis that

Aratus Aratus (; ; c. 315/310 240 BC) was a Greek didactic poet. His major extant work is his hexameter poem ''Phenomena'' (, ''Phainómena'', "Appearances"; ), the first half of which is a verse setting of a lost work of the same name by Eudoxus of Cn ...

and

Hipparchus Hipparchus (; , ; BC) was a Ancient Greek astronomy, Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Hippar ...

(insofar as his work survives) correctly and completely represent immemorial tradition, that the constellations we now use had been devised when the Pole was in Draco, about 2800 BC. He also concluded that the inventors probably lived between 34°30' and 37°30' N., north of most ancient civilizations, and so were likely to be the Minoans. Dr. Crommelin, FRAS, has disputed this latitude, arguing that the constellation makers could only see to 54° S, but that this was compatible with latitudes as low as the 31°N of

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

; stars which only skirt the southern horizon by a few degrees are not effectively visible. Assuming a Greek latitude would render

Canopus Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina (constellation), Carina and the list of brightest stars, second-brightest star in the night sky. It is also Bayer designation, designated α Carinae, which is Rom ...

and

Fomalhaut Fomalhaut (, ) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, and one of the brightest stars in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation Alpha Piscis Austrini, which is an alternative ...

invisible. Crommelin estimates the constellators at 2460 BC; R. A. Proctor has estimated 2170 BC. E. W. Maunder 2700 BC. Faucounau's addition to this is the argument that Crete is also too far south, that the names of the constellations are (Ionic) Greek, not Minoan, and therefore that the constellation makers must be the proto-Ionians in the

Cyclades The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

. The south coast of Crete follows 35°N latitude;

Syros Syros ( ), also known as Siros or Syra, is a Greece, Greek island in the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. It is south-east of Athens. The area of the island is and at the 2021 census it had 21,124 inhabitants. The largest towns are Ermoupoli, Ano S ...

, which he identifies as a center of proto-Ionian civilization, is at 37°20'. On this basis, he identifies the proto-Ionians with the archaeological Early Cycladic II culture: after all, they made round "

frying pans A frying pan is a type of Early Cycladic II artifact made in the Aegean Islands between and . They are flat circular disks with a "handle", and usually made from earthenware, but sometimes stone ( Frying pan (Karlsruhe 75/11) is an example) ...

," and one of them with an incised spiral, and the Phaistos Disc is round with an incised spiral. His third argument depends on Herodotus's somewhat obscure use of the word

Pelasgian The name Pelasgians (, ) was used by Classical Greece, Classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the Greeks#Origins, emergence of the Greeks. In general, "Pelasgian" h ...

for various peoples, Greek-speaking and otherwise, around the Aegean basin. Faucounau claims that the word, which he derives idiosyncratically from πελαγος, "sea", means the descendants of the proto-Ionians. Some of them lost their language because they settled among foreigners; others, such as the Athenians, preserved their language - Attic, apparently, arises from a mixture of proto-Ionian and other dialects. He does not explain why Homer speaks of

Dodona Dodona (; , Ionic Greek, Ionic and , ) in Epirus in northwestern Greece was the oldest Ancient Greece, Hellenic oracle, possibly dating to the 2nd millennium BCE according to Herodotus. The earliest accounts in Homer describe Dodona as an oracle ...

, inland in north-western Greece, as Pelasgian (Il, 16,233); nor why no place in historic

Ionia Ionia ( ) was an ancient region encompassing the central part of the western coast of Anatolia. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who ...

is called Pelasgian. He adds to the above arguments with archaeological facts. For example, the Treaty of

Alaksandu Alaksandu (Hittite language, Hittite: ), alternatively called Alakasandu or Alaksandus, was a king of Wilusa who sealed a treaty with Hittite empire, Hittite king Muwatalli II ca. 1280 BC. This treaty implies that Alaksandu had previously secure ...

between

Wilusa Wilusa () or Wilusiya was a Late Bronze Age city in western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) known from references in fragmentary Hittites, Hittite records. The city is notable for its identification with the archaeological site of Troy, and thus its ...

and the

Hittite empire The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...

bore a Greek name at a time when there was no Mycenaean pottery at Troy. Faucounau considers that all these arguments are an indirect confirmation of his own decipherment claim of the Phaistos Disk as proto-Ionic. Faucounau's "Proto-Ionic Disk Language" has most of the properties of

Homeric Greek Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used in the ''Iliad'', ''Odyssey'', and ''Homeric Hymns''. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of an archaic form of Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from Ar ...

, including loss of labiovelars and even of

(both are preserved intact in the Mycenaean of the 14th century BC). Digamma, in Faucounau's reading of the Phaistos Disk, has in some instances passed to ''y'', a sound shift not known from any other Greek dialect, but suspected in Ionic (e.g. Ion. païs v/etym. paus). For Faucounau, the

s, the

Trojans Trojan or Trojans may refer to: * Of or from the ancient city of Troy * Trojan language, the language of the historical Trojans Arts and entertainment Music * ''Les Troyens'' ('The Trojans'), an opera by Berlioz, premiered part 1863, part 1890 ...

, the

Carians The Carians (; , ''Kares'', plural of , ''Kar'') were the ancient inhabitants of Caria in southwest Anatolia, who spoke the Carian language. Historical accounts Karkisa It is not clear when the Carians enter into history. The definition is ...

and the

Philistines Philistines (; LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philistines origi ...

are all descended from the Proto-Ionians. Faucounau's work on this subject has received two scholarly notices. Paul Faure, as below, writes warmly of many parts of the Proto-Ionian theory. He declines to address the decipherment, and omits the Celts; he also dates the Middle Cycladic culture only from 2700 BC, not 2900. Yves Duhoux expresses his disbelief in the decipherment, but does not mention the wider theory, except to deny that the Disc came from Syros. Faucounau's paper on the statistical problem of how many glyphs are likely to be omitted from a short text has never been cited. Most of it addresses the long-solved case in which the glyphs are equally likely.

References

* Jean Faucounau, ''Le déchiffrement du Disque de Phaistos'', Paris 1999. * Jean Faucounau, ''Les Proto-Ioniens : histoire d'un peuple oublié'', Paris 2001. Esp. pp. 33ff, 35ff, 37f, p. 57, p. 61, p. 63 124. ** Review: Paul Faure, ''Revue des études grecques'' Vol. 15 (2002), p. 424f. * Jean Faucounau, ''Les Peuples de la Mer et leur Histoire'', Paris 2003. * Jean Faucounau, ''Les Origines Grecques à l'Age de Bronze'', Paris 2005. * Vladimir Georgiev,
Mycénien et homérique: Le problème du digamma
in ''Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium on Mycenaean Studies'', Cambridge 1966, p. 104-124. * Vladimir Georgiev,
Le traitement des sonantes voyelles indo-européennes et le problème du caractère de la langue mycénienne
in ''Acta Mycenaea'', Salamanca 1972, p. 361-379. * Jonathan M. Hallm, ''Hellenicity: between ethnicity and culture''. University of Chicago Press, 2002, , p. 39. * George Hempl, ''Prehistoric Wanderings of the Hittite Greeks'', in Mediterranean Studies, Vol III. Stanford University Press (1931), * Paul Kretschmer, ''Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache'' (1896). *

Pierre Lévêque Pierre Lévêque (; 11 August 1921, in Chambéry – 5 March 2004, in Paris) was a 20th-century French historian of ancient and Hellenistic Greece. Biography Training The son of an engineer, he spent his youth in the port of Bordeaux. Read ...

, ''L'aventure grecque'', p. 16-29. * Michael W. Ovenden, ''The Origin of the Constellations'' in ''The Philosophical Journal 3'' (1966), p. 1-18. * A. C. D. Crommelin "The ancient Constellation Figures" in ''Hutchinson's Splendour of the Heavens'' London, 1923 Vol . II pp. 640–669. * Cornelis J. Ruijgh, in ''Les Civilisations égéennes'', René Treuil et al. edit, (Paris 1989), p. 401-423. * Cornelis J. Ruijgh, ''Sur la position dialectale du Mycénien'' in ''Atti e Memorie del Secondo Congresso Internazionale di Micenologia'' (Roma 1996) p. 115-124. * A. Thumb, E. Kieckers, ''Handbuch der griechischen Dialekte'' (1932). * Liddell, Scott, Jones, ''

A Greek–English Lexicon ''A Greek–English Lexicon'', often referred to as ''Liddell & Scott'' () or ''Liddell–Scott–Jones'' (''LSJ''), is a standard lexicographical work of the Ancient Greek language originally edited by Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, H ...

'', ''s.v.'' πηδάω. * ''National Geographic Atlas of the World'' (1992 ed.) p. 66.

External links

* {{Note, Chadwick
Discussion by Faucounau of the "Risch-Chadwick Theory"
Archaeoastronomy Hypotheses Aegean languages in the Bronze Age Ionians

Position of Ionic Greek

Faucounau

See also

References

External links