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| Thracian | |
|---|---|
| Region | Bulgaria,European Turkey,parts of Southern Serbia, parts of theregion of Macedonia (includingPaeonia), regions inNorthern Greece, parts ofRomania, parts ofBithynia inAnatolia. Probably also spoken in parts ofDardania. |
| Extinct | 6th century AD[1] |
Indo-European
| |
| Greek | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | txh |
txh | |
| Glottolog | thra1250 |
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TheThracian language (/ˈθreɪʃən/) is an extinct andpoorly attested language, spoken in ancient times inSoutheast Europe by theThracians. The linguistic affinities of the Thracian language arepoorly understood, but it is generally agreed that it was anIndo-European language.[2]
The point at which Thracian became extinct is a matter of dispute. However, it is generally accepted that Thracian was still in use in the 6th century AD:Antoninus of Piacenza wrote in 570 that there was a monastery in theSinai, at which the monks spokeGreek,Latin,Syriac,Egyptian, andBessian – a Thracian dialect.[3][4][5][6]
A classification put forward byHarvey Mayer, suggests that Thracian (andDacian) belonged to theBaltic branch of Indo-European, or at least is closer to Baltic than any other Indo-European branch.[7] However, this theory has not achieved the status of a general consensus among linguists. These are among many competing hypotheses regarding the classification and fate of Thracian.[8]
The Thracian language or languages were spoken in what is nowBulgaria,[9][10]Romania,North Macedonia,Northern Greece,European Turkey and in parts ofBithynia (North-Western Asiatic Turkey).
Little is known for certain about the Thracian language, since no text has been satisfactorily deciphered. Some of the longer inscriptions may be Thracian in origin but they may simply reflect jumbles of names or magical formulas.[11]
Enough Thracian lexical items have survived to show that Thracian was a member of theIndo-European language family.
Besides the aforementioned inscriptions, Thracian may be attested throughpersonal names,toponyms,hydronyms,phytonyms, divine names, etc. and by a small number of words cited in Ancient Greek texts as being specifically Thracian.[12][unreliable source?]
There are 23 words mentioned by ancient sources considered explicitly of Thracian origin and known meaning.[13][14] Of the words that are preserved in ancient glossaries, in particular by Hesychius, only three dozen can be considered "Thracian". However, Indo-European scholars have pointed out that "even the notion that what the ancients called "Thracian" was a single entity is unproven."[15] The table below lists potentialcognates from Indo-European languages, but most of them have not found general acceptance within Indo-European scholarship. Not all lexical items in Thracian are assumed to be from theProto-Indo-European language, some non-IE lexical items in Thracian are to be expected.
| Word | Meaning | Attested by | Cognates | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ἄσα (asa) | colt's foot (Bessi) | Dioscorides | Lithuanian dialectalasỹs 'horse-tail, Equisetum', Latvianaši,ašas 'horse-tail, sedge, rush' | The etymology of both Baltic words is unclear and extra-Baltic cognates have yet to be established.[16] |
| βόλινθος (bólinthos) | aurochs, European bison | Aristotle | Proto-Slavic*volъ ("ox"). Per Beekes,Pre-Greek.[17] | See also Greek βοῦς 'cow', but Latv.govs 'id ' both < PIE *gwṓws. Proto-Slavic *vòlъ has no extra-Slavic cognates. |
| βρία (bría) | unfortified village | Hesychius of Alexandria, compare the toponyms Πολτυμβρία, Σηλυ(μ)μβρία, and Βρέα in Thrace. | Compared to Greek ῥίον (ríon; "peak, foothills") and Tocharian Ari, Briye ("town") as if <*urih₁-. Alternatively, compare Proto-Celtic*brix- ("hill"). | Greek ῥίον has no clear etymology.[18] The Tocharian lemmata may be related.[19] |
| βρίζα (bríza) | rye | Galen | Perhaps of Eastern origin, compare Greek ὄρυζα, Sanskritvrīhí- ("rice"). | The 'rice' words in Greek and Sanskrit areWanderwörter. The Greek word may be borrowed from an Eastern Iranian language.[20] |
| βρυνχός (brynkhós) | kithara[21] | Compared with Slavic*bręčati "to ring". | The Proto-Slavic lemma is reconstructed based exclusively on Serbo-Croatianbrecati 'twang, be insolent' and consequently may not even be reconstructable to its own proto-language as there are no external or internal comparanda. It may be onomatopoetic in nature. Furthermore, there is a grave issue with the inscription, as Gk /ŋ/ is written with a gamma before a velar, i.e., this word should be writtenβρυγχός, which it is not. | |
| βρῦτος (brŷtos) | beer of barley | many | Slavic "vriti" (to boil), Germanic*bruþa- ("broth"), Old Irishbruth ("glow"), Latindē-frŭtum ("must boiled down").[21][a] | |
| dinupula, si/nupyla | wild melon | Pseudo-Apuleius | Lithuanianšùnobuolas, lit. ("dog's apple"), or with Slavic*dynja ("melon"). Per Vladimir Georgiev, derived from*kun-ābōlo- or*kun-ābulo- 'hound's apple'.[21] | Proto-Slavic *dyña (from earlier *kъdyña is most likely borrowed from Gk. κῠδώνῐον via Lat.cydōnia.[23] |
| γέντον (génton) | meat | Herodian,Suda, Hesychius | Possibly descended from IE*gʷʰn̥tó- 'strike, kill', cf. Sanskrithatá- 'hit, killed' | The adjective *gʷʰn̥tós in the zero-grade has an *-s in the nom.sg., whereas in Thracian the word ends in a nasal, which is a serious issue that requires morphological remodelling in Thracian for it to be posited as the starting point for Thracian γέντον. Furthermore, the e-grade vowel of the Thracian potential avatar remains to be explained as well if from an original PIE *gʷʰn̥tós. |
| καλαμίνδαρ (kalamíndar) | plane-tree (Edoni) | Hesychius | ||
| κη̃μος (kêmos) | a kind of fruit with follicle | Photios I of Constantinople'sLexicon | ||
| κτίσται (ktístai) | Ctistae | Strabo | ||
| midne (in a Latin inscription, thus not written with Gk alphabet) | village | inscription from Rome | Latvianmītne 'a place of stay', Avestanmaēϑana- 'dwelling'[2] | |
| Πολτυμ(βρία) (poltym-bría) | board fence, a board tower | Old Englishspeld 'wood, log' | The OE lemma is poorly understood and extra-Germanic cognates are few and far between. OEspeld may have descended from a PIE root *(s)pley- which is poorly attested and does not seem to be a formal match to the Thracian term. | |
| ῥομφαία (rhomphaía) | broadsword | Compared with Latinrumpō ("to rupture"),[21] Slavic: Russianразрубать, Polishrąbać ("to hack", "to chop", "to slash"), Polishrębajło ("eager swordsman"), Serbo-Croatianrmpalija ("bruiser") | The Slavic terms here must come from a medial *-bh-, whereas Lat.rumpō 'I break' must descend from a medial *-p-[24] and therefore those words aren't even cognate with each other, let alone with the Thracian term. | |
| σκάλμη (skálmē) | knife, sword | Sophocles,Julius Pollux,Marcus Aurelius, Hesychius, Photios'Lexicon | Albanianshkallmë ("sword"), Old Norseskolmr 'cleft' | The Albanian term is likely a secondary innovation. ONskolmr is unclear and has no extra-Germanic cognates;[25] it is unlikely to be related to the Thracian term. |
| σκάρκη (skárkē) | a silver coin | Hesychius, Photios'Lexicon | ||
| σπίνος (spínos) | 'a kind of stone, which blazes when water touches it' (i.e. 'lime') | Aristotle | PIE *k̑witn̥os 'white, whitish', Greek τίτανος (Attic) and κίττανος (Doric) 'gypsum, chalk, lime'. Although from the same PIE root, Albanianshpâ(ni) 'lime, tartar' and Greek σπίνος 'lime' derive from a secondary origin as they were probably borrowed from Thracian due to phonetic reasons[26] | |
| τορέλλη (toréllē) | a refrain of lament mourn song | Hesychius | ||
| ζαλμός (zalmós) | animal hide | Porphyry of Tyre | Per Georgiev, derived from*kolmo-s. Related to Gothichilms, GermanHelm and Old Iraniansárman 'protection'.[21] | Thracian initial ζ- can either be related to PIE *ḱ (as in these 'cognates' and several below) or to *ǵh-/*gh- as in the following entry, but not both. There does not exist an OIr wordsárman,[27] but a wordśárman does exist in Sanskrit. However, Sanskrit ś- must go back to a PIE *ḱ-, not *k- as Georgiev states. |
| ζειρά (zeira) | long robe worn by Arabs and Thracians | Herodotus,Xenophon, Hesychius | Per Georgiev, related to Greek χείρ (kheir) and Phrygian ζειρ (zeir) 'hand'.[21] | See above. The meaning of Phrygian ζειρα(ι) is unknown, not 'hand' as Georgiev believes.[28] |
| ζελᾶ (zelâ), also ζῆλα (zêla), ζηλᾱς (zelās) | wine | many | Compared with Greek χάλις (khális; "unblended wine") and κάλιθος (kálithos; "wine") | See above. |
| ζετραία (zetraía) | pot | Julius Pollux | Per Georgiev, related to Greekχύτρα (khútra) 'pot'.[21] | See above. |
| zibythides | the noble, most holy one | Hesychius | Lith.žibùtė ("shining") |
The following are the longest inscriptions preserved. The remaining ones are mostly single words or names on vessels and other artifacts. No translation has been accepted by the larger Indo-European community of scholars.[29]
Only four Thracian inscriptions of any length have been found. The first is a gold ring found in 1912 in the village ofEzerovo (Plovdiv Province ofBulgaria); the ring was dated to the 5th century BC.[30] The ring features an inscription in a Greek script consisting of 8 lines, the eighth of which is located on the rim of the rotating disk; it reads without any spaces between:ΡΟΛΙΣΤΕΝΕΑΣΝ / ΕΡΕΝΕΑΤΙΛ / ΤΕΑΝΗΣΚΟΑ / ΡΑΖΕΑΔΟΜ / ΕΑΝΤΙΛΕΖΥ / ΠΤΑΜΙΗΕ / ΡΑΖ // ΗΛΤΑ
Dimitar Dechev (Germanised asD. Detschew) separates the words as follows:[31][32]
ΡΟΛΙΣΤΕΝΕΑΣ
Rolisteneas
ΝΕΡΕΝΕΑ
Nerenea
ΤΙΛΤΕΑΝ
tiltean
ΗΣΚΟ
ēsko
ΑΡΑΖΕΑ
Arazea
ΔΟΜΕΑΝ
domean
ΤΙΛΕΖΥΠΤΑ
Tilezypta
ΜΙΗ
miē
ΕΡΑ
era
ΖΗΛΤΑ
zēlta
ΡΟΛΙΣΤΕΝΕΑΣ ΝΕΡΕΝΕΑ ΤΙΛΤΕΑΝ ΗΣΚΟ ΑΡΑΖΕΑ ΔΟΜΕΑΝ ΤΙΛΕΖΥΠΤΑ ΜΙΗ ΕΡΑ ΖΗΛΤΑ
Rolisteneas Nerenea tiltean ēsko Arazea domean Tilezypta miē era zēlta
I am Rolisteneas, a descendant of Nereneas; Tilezypta, an Arazian woman, delivered me to the ground.
A second inscription, hitherto undeciphered, was found in 1965 near the village ofKyolmen [bg],Varbitsa Municipality, dating to the sixth century BC. Written in a Greek alphabet variant, it is possibly a tomb stele inscription similar to the Phrygian ones; Peter A. Dimitrov's transcription thereof is:[33]
i.e.
A third inscription is again on a ring, found inDuvanlii [bg],Kaloyanovo Municipality, next to the left hand of a skeleton. It dates to the 5th century BC. The ring has the image of ahorseman[36] with the inscription surrounding the image.[37] It is only partly legible (16 out of the initial 21):
ΗΥΖΙΗ
ēuziē
.....
.....
ΔΕΛΕ
dele
/
/
ΜΕΖΗΝΑΙ
mezēnai
ΗΥΖΙΗ ..... ΔΕΛΕ / ΜΕΖΗΝΑΙ
ēuziē ..... dele / mezēnai
The wordmezenai is interpreted to mean 'Horseman', and a cognate toIllyrianMenzanas (as in "Juppiter/Jove Menzanas" 'Juppiter of the foals' or 'Juppiter on a horse');[38][39][40]Albanianmëz 'foal';Romanianmînz 'colt, foal';[41][42]Latinmannus 'small horse, pony';[43][44]Gaulishmanduos 'pony' (as in tribe nameViromandui[45] 'men who own ponies').[46][47][b]
Due to a paucity of evidence required to establish a linguistic connection, the Thracian language, in modern linguistic textbooks, is usually treated either as its own branch of Indo-European,[2] or is grouped with Dacian, together forming a Daco-Thracian branch of IE. Older textbooks often grouped it also withIllyrian orPhrygian. The idea that Thracian was close to Phrygian is no longer popular and has mostly been discarded.[49]
There is a fringe idea[50][51] that Thraco-Dacian forms a branch of Indo-European along withBaltic,[52] but a Balto-Slavic linguistic unity is so overwhelmingly accepted by the Indo-European linguistic community that this hypothesis does not pass muster.
According to the 19th-century Greek educatorVlasios Skordelis, when Thracians were subjugated byAlexander the Great they finally assimilated to Greek culture and became as Greek as Spartans and Athenians, although he considered the Thracian language as a form of Greek.[53] According to Crampton (1997) most Thracians were eventually Hellenized or Romanized, with the last remnants surviving in remote areas until the 5th century.[54] According to Marinov (2015) the Thracians were likely completely Romanized and Hellenized after the last contemporary references to them of the 6th century.[55]
Another author believes that the interior of Thrace was never Romanized or Hellenized (Trever, 1939).[56] This was followed also by Slavonization. According to Weithmann (1978) when the Slavs migrated, they encountered only a very superficially Romanized Thracian and Dacian population, which had not strongly identified itself with Imperial Rome, while Greek and Roman populations (mostly soldiers, officials, merchants) abandoned the land or were killed.[57] Because Pulpudeva survived asPlovdiv in Slavic languages, not under Philippopolis, some authors suggest that Thracian was not completely obliterated in the 7th century.[58][59]
There are as many interpretations of these as there are investigators; and as a result these monuments have not contributed anything to our knowledge of the language
Ich bin Rolisteneas, Sprößling des Nereneas; Tilezypta, Arazerin nach ihrer Heimat, hat mich der Erde übergeben (d.h. begraben).
Μεζην = nom.-voc., which is under the figure of the horseman, is the name of the Thracian god-horseman; it corresponds to the name (epithet) of the Messapian godMenzana (Iupiter), to whom horses were offered as a sacrifice. Both names are derived from*mendy-ān 'horseman', a derivative of*mendi(o)- 'horse'; they are related to Alb.mëz- 'stallion' and Rum. (Dac.)mînz 'stallion'.
Georgiev (1977, 112) suggested to connect MEZHNAI withIuppiter Menzana, which seems more plausible, if one remembers of the mounted figure on the ring, Menzana being a deity connected with the horse-cult. (...) The second wordmezēnai could be identified withMenzana and treated as a name of a deity.Accessed 22 July 2024.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)Vl. Georgiev zeigte, daß es dieses Wort auch im Thrakischen gab, wo die FormMezenai unter dem Bild des thrakischen Ritters auftaucht.[Vl. Georgiev demonstrated that the word existed in Thracian, with the formMezenai, under the depiction of the Thracian Horseman.]