| Paleo-Sardinian | |
|---|---|
| Nuragic | |
| Region | Sardinia |
| Ethnicity | Ancient Sardinians |
| Extinct | c. 2nd century AD[citation needed] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | None |
Paleo-Sardinian, also known asProto-Sardinian orNuragic, is a set ofextinct languages spoken on the Mediterranean island ofSardinia by the ancient Sardinian population during theNuragic era. Starting from the Roman conquest of Sardinia and Corsica, a process oflanguage shift took place, wherein Latin became the only language spoken by the islanders. Paleo-Sardinian is thought to have left traces in the island'sonomastics as well astoponyms, which appear to preserve grammatical suffixes, and a number of words in the modernSardinian language.
There is toponymic evidence suggesting that the Paleo-Sardinian language may have a connection to the reconstructedProto-Basque and to the Pre-Indo-EuropeanIberian language of Spain.[1] According toMax Leopold Wagner:
So e.g.sakkáyu, -a,sakkáġġu, -a is in Sardinian a lamb or a goat of a year or a year and a half; brings to mind theAragonesesegało,Catalansagall,Béarnesesigàlo 'goat of the same age', which my colleagueRohlfs combined with the Basquesegaila 'a year old goat' which seems to be derived from the Basquesekail,segail 'svelte',sakaildu 'décharner, maigrir'. Of course, not everything is equally certain, and the investigation must be continued and expanded. Naturally I am far from wanting to identify Sardinians and Basques, Sardinians and Iberians, I believe that one must always bear in mind that other influences may also have manifested themselves, long-standing Mediterranean influences, Ligurian and perhaps even Alpine influences. Certain coincidences between Sardinian andAlbanian are also notable.[2]
Massimo Pallottino, referring to various authors such as Bertoldi, Terracini and Wagner, highlighted the following similarities between Sardinian, Basque and Iberian:
Various Sardinian onomastic elements recall Iberian place names, not only in the roots (which often have a pan-Mediterranean diffusion) but also in the morphological structure of the words, for example: Sardinian: ula-, olla-; Iberian: Ulla; Sardinian: paluca, Iberian: baluca; Sardinian: nora, nurra, Iberian: nurra; Sardinian: ur-pe, Iberian: iturri-pe.
Added to this is a fact that, due to the number of concordances, cannot be considered casual and appears to be of the highest interest: the existence, that is, of specific analogies between elements of the lexical heritage of the Basque language and individual lexical relics or toponymic entries in Sardinia:
Examples: Sardinian: aurri (black hornbeam); Basque: aurri (name of tree) Sardinian: bitti (little lamb); Basque: bitin (little goat); Sardinian: golosti (holly); Basque: gorosti (holly) Sardinian: sgiàgaru (dog); Basque: zakur (dog); Sardinian: mògoro (height); Basque: mokor (clod, trunk); Sardinian: òspile (small enclosure); Basque: ospel (shady place) Sardinian: orri, orrui; Basque: orri (juniper) Sardinian: usai, useis; Basque: usi (forest);
The correspondences also extend to formative elements: for example -aga, which in Basque is used for toponyms with a collective meaning (harriaga-pile of stones from harri-stone) and which can explain the Sardinian type nuraghe compared to nurra (also the Iberian toponym Tarracone to the Sardinian maragoni).
— La Sardegna nuragica, Massimo Pallottino, Ilisso edizioni, 1950, p. 96.
ArchaeologistGiovanni Lilliu hypothesized that the "Basque-Caucasian" idioms of theBonnanaro culture replaced the previous languages of "pan-Mediterranean" type spoken by the preceding cultures.[3]
Eduardo Blasco Ferrer concluded that the Paleo-Sardinian language developed on the island in theNeolithic as a result of prehistoric migration from theIberian Peninsula.[4] In his analysis of the Paleo-Sardinian language, he finds only traces of Indo-European influence –*ōsa,*debel- and perhaps*mara,*pal-,*nava,*sala – which were possibly introduced in the LateChalcolithic through Liguria.[5] Similarities between Paleo-Sardinian andAncient Ligurian were also noted byEmidio De Felice.[6] Blasco Ferrer stated:
The results thus obtained have shed light on the true nature of the Paleo-Sardinian substratum, that is, of an agglutinative language, which shows clear structural correspondences with the Paleo-Hispanic languages, in particular with the reconstructed Paleo-Basque and with Iberian. [...] The investigation highlights for the first time the stratified components of the pre-Semitic (Phoenician-Punic) Paleo-Sardinian substratum, that is, a primary Paleo-Basque and Iberian component, plus two minor components, onePeri-Indo-European and one Paleo-Indo-European[7]
However, for the linguist andglottologist Giulio Paulis, the Basque language is not helpful in the interpretation of the toponymic heritage of Paleo-Sardinian origin.[8]
Bertoldi and Terracini propose that the common suffix-ara, stressed on theantepenult, was a plural marker, and they indicated a connection to Iberian or to the Paleo-Sicilian languages.[citation needed] Terracini claims a similar connection for the suffixes-ànarV, -ànnarV, -énnarV,and -ònnarV, as in the place nameBonnànnaro. The suffix-ini also seems to be characteristic, as in the place nameBarùmini. Infixes-arr-, -err-, -orr-,and -urr- have been claimed to correspond to the North AfricanNumidia (Terracini), to the Basque-speaking Iberia andGascony (Wagner, Rohlfs, Blasco Ferrer, Hubschmid), and to southern Italy (Rohlfs).
The non-Latin suffixes-ài, -éi, -òi,and -ùi survive in modern place names based on Latin roots. Terracini sees connections toBerber. Bertoldi sees anAnatolian connection in the endings-ài, -asài (similar claims have been made of theElymians of Sicily). A suffix-aiko is also common in Iberia. The tribal suffix-itani, -etani, as in theSulcitani, has also been identified as Paleo-Sardinian.
Several linguists, including Bertoldi, Terracini, Wagner, and Hubschmid,[9] proposed various linguistic layers in prehistoric Sardinia.[6] The oldest – pan-Mediterranean – was widespread in the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy, Sardinia, and North Africa. The second –Hispano-Caucasian – would explain the similarities between Basque and Paleo-Sardinian, and the third – Ligurian.[6]
The linguist Massimo Pittau[10] argues that the Paleo-Sardinian language and theEtruscan language were closely linked, as he argues that they were both emanations of the Anatolian branch of Indo-European. According to Pittau, the "Nuragics" were ofLydian origin who imported their Indo-European language to the island, pushing out the Pre-Indo-European languages spoken by thePre-Nuragic peoples, but this hypothesis does not enjoy consensus.[11] The Etruscan language is believed to be neither Indo-European nor related to the Anatolian languages nor to the Paleo-Sardinian language. The consensus among scholars is that Etruscan is only related to theRhaetic language spoken in the Alps and to the language attested by a few inscriptions found on the island ofLemnos.[12][13][14]
Some examples of Nuragic names of Indo-European origin might be:[15]
Some scholars attribute a "Rhaetian-Etruscoid" strand with the suffix -èna that characterizes a series of toponyms in central Italy (Tuscany, Umbria, Tuscia and Marsica) and in Veneto, passing throughEmilia andRomagna. The presence of this suffix is attested, at least since the Middle Ages, also in southern Corsica and in the eastern coast of Sardinia (Gallura, Barbagia, Ogliastra), e.g., Arzachèna, Lugulèna, etc.[16]
Archeologist Giovanni Ugas suggested that the three main Nuragic populations (Balares,Corsi andIlienses) may have had separate origins and spoke different languages:
The common subdivision of modern Sardinian into the three dialects ofGallurese,Logudorese, andCampidanese might reflect that multilingual substratum.[20] Other Paleo-Sardinian tribes of possible Indo-European stock were theLucuidonenses from the north of the island[a], and theSiculensi from theSarrabus region.[b][21]
According to Guido Borghi, researcher of glottology and linguistics at the University of Genoa, conclusions appear to display the merits of both Proto-Indo-European and pre-Indo-European/non-Indo-European theories in Sardinian toponyms. Proto-Indo-European appellations can be recognized in Paleo-Sardinian, as in the case of the toponymThìscali, which could derive from the Proto-Indo-European*Dʱĭhₓ-s-kə̥̥̆ₐ-lĭhₐ with the meaning of "the little (mountain) in the set of the territories which are in plain sight."[22]
Etruscan origins lie in the distant past. Despite the claim by Herodotus, who wrote that Etruscans migrated to Italy from Lydia in the eastern Mediterranean, there is no material or linguistic evidence to support this. Etruscan material culture developed in an unbroken chain from Bronze Age antecedents. As for linguistic relationships, Lydian is an Indo-European language. Lemnian, which is attested by a few inscriptions discovered near Kaminia on the island of Lemnos, was a dialect of Etruscan introduced to the island by commercial adventurers. Linguistic similarities connecting Etruscan with Raetic, a language spoken in the sub-Alpine regions of northeastern Italy, further militate against the idea of eastern origins.