| Mysian | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Turkey |
| Region | Mysia |
| Ethnicity | Mysians |
| Extinct | 1st century BC[1] |
| Mysian alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | yms |
yms | |
| Glottolog | mysi1239 |
Mysian[a] was spoken byMysians inhabitingMysia in north-westAnatolia.
Little is known about the Mysian language. Strabo noted that it was, "in a way, a mixture of theLydian andPhrygian languages".[2] As such, the Mysian language could be a language of theAnatolian or Phrygian group. However, a passage inAthenaeus suggests that the Mysian language was akin to the barely attestedPaeonian language ofPaeonia, north ofMacedon.It is believed that along with Phrygian, the language was thought to have entered Anatolia from theBalkans.[citation needed]
Only one inscription is known that may be in the Mysian language. It has seven lines of about 20 signs each, written from right to left (sinistroverse), but the first two lines are very incomplete. The inscription dates from between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE and was found in 1926 byChristopher William Machell Cox andArchibald Cameron in Üyücek village, 15 km due south ofTavşanlı, in the Tavşanlı district ofKütahya province, near the outskirts of the classical Phrygian territory.[3] The text seems to includeIndo-European words.[4][5]
The alphabet used resembles theOld-Phrygian alphabet, but some signs are quite different:[6]
| sign |  , |  | Δ ? |  , |  | I |  |  |  |  |  , |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phrygian equivalent |  | |  | Λ, Δ | , | | I |  |  | | | O |  | |  | T |  |  |  |
| transcription | a | b | g | d | e | v | i | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | u | y | |
| phoneme | /a/, /a:/ | /b/ | /g/ | /d/ | /e/, /e:/ | /w/ | /i/, /i:/ | /k/ | /l/ | /m/ | /n/ | /o/, /o:/ | /p/ | /r/ | /s/ | /t/ | /u/, /u:/ | /j/ | /ts/ ? |
In the past there has been much confusion concerning thesibilants in the alphabet. Initially it was thought that the sign represented a sibilant, transcribed asš orz, but since 1969 it is known that it actually denoted a /j/ sound, transcribed asy. The sign was thought to be a sound not present in the regular Old-Phrygian alphabet and dubbed the "Mysian s", transcribed as ś, but it was in fact the regulars. The sign was formerly transcribeds, but it is in fact the equivalent of the Phrygian sign, probably denoting a /z/, /zd/, or /ts/ sound.[7]
It is uncertain whether the inscription renders a text in the Mysian language or if it is simply a Phrygian dialect from the region of Mysia. Brixhe, discussing the existing literature on the inscription, argues that the language is Phrygian.[8] The seventh line can be read as:
The words "braterais patriyioisk[e]" have been proposed to mean something like "(for)[9] brothers and fathers / relatives":[10]
Lakes (or-lakes, a first sign may be missing; alternatively, according to Friedrich, read ...likeś[12]) is most probably a personal name.[13] However, Friedrich indicates that the reading is variable, and writes "instead of k also p or a conceivably, instead of e[,] v is possible, instead of ś maybe i." (translated from the original German)[14]
Before 1st Century AD.