| Eteocypriot | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Formerly spoken inCyprus |
| Region | EasternMediterranean Sea |
| Era | 10th to 4th century BC[1] |
| Cypriot syllabary | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ecy |
ecy | |
| Glottolog | eteo1240 |
 One of the Eteocypriot inscriptions from Amathus | |
Eteocypriot is anextinct non-Indo-European language that was spoken inCyprus by a non-Hellenic population during theIron Age. The name means "true" or "original Cypriot" parallel toEteocretan, both of which names are used by modernscholars to mean the non-Greek languages of those places.[2] Eteocypriot was written in theCypriot syllabary, a syllabic script derived fromLinear A (via the Cypro-Minoan variantLinear C). The language was under pressure fromArcadocypriot Greek from about the 10th century BC and finally became extinct in about the 4th century BC.
The language is as yet unknown except for a small vocabulary attested in bilingual inscriptions. Such topics assyntax and possibleinflection oragglutination remain an enigma. Partial translations depend to a large extent on the language or language group assumed by the translator, but there is no consistency.
Due to the small number of texts found, there is currently much unproven speculation about the origin of the language and its speakers. It is conjectured by some to be related to theEtruscan andLemnian languages[citation needed],Hurrian,[3]Northwest Semitic[citation needed], an unknownpre-Indo-European language[citation needed], or a language used in some of theCypro-Minoan inscriptions[citation needed], a collection of poorly-understood inscriptions fromBronze Age Cyprus,[4] as both Cypro-Minoan and Eteocypriot share a common genitive suffix-o-ti.[5]
Several hundred inscriptions written in the Cypriot syllabary (VI–III BC) cannot be interpreted in Greek. While it does not necessarily imply that all of them are non-Greek, there are at least two locations where multiple inscriptions with clearly non-Greek content were found:
While the language ofCypro-Minoan inscriptions is often supposed to be the same as (or ancestral to) Eteocypriot, that has yet to be proven, as the script is only partly legible.
The most famous Eteocypriot inscription is theAmathus bilingual, a bilingual text inscribed on a black marble slab found on theacropolis ofAmathus about 1913, dated to around 600 BC and written in both theAttic dialect ofAncient Greek and Eteocypriot. The Eteocypriot text in Cypriot characters runs right to left; the Greek text in all capitalGreek letters, left to right. The following are the syllabic values of the symbols of the Eteocypriot text (left to right) and the Greek text as is:
Cyrus H. Gordon translates this text as
Gordon's translation is based on Greek inscriptions in general and the fact that "the noble Ariston" is in theaccusative case, implying atransitive verb. Gordon explains that "the verb is omitted ... in such dedicatory inscriptions".
The inscription is important as verifying that the symbols of the unknown language, in fact, have about the same phonetic values as they do when they are used to represent Greek. Gordon says, "This bilingual proves that the signs in Eteocypriot texts have the same values as in the Cypriot Greek texts...."[8]
[Eteocypriot] is a Hurrian dialect [and] was not the first spoken language in Cyprus.
Eteocypriot had survived from the Cypriot Bronze Age (perhaps related to a language written in the undeciphered Cypro-Minoan script.)
