| Trojan | |
|---|---|
| (unattested) | |
| Region | Troy |
| Era | c. 1300 BCE |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Trojan War |
|---|
 |
Trojans and allies |
TheTrojan language was the language spoken inTroy during theLate Bronze Age. The identity of the language is unknown, and it is not certain that there was one single language used in the city at the time. A putativeTrojan script was discovered byHeinrich Schliemann on several artifacts, although it is extremely unclear if this script is a single script, or indeed writing at all.
One candidate language isLuwian, anAnatolian language which was widely spoken in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. Arguments in favor of this hypothesis include seemingly Luwian-origin Trojan names such as "Kukkunni" and "Wilusiya", cultural connections between Troy and the nearby Luwian-speaking states ofArzawa, and aseal withHieroglyphic Luwian writing found in the ruins of Troy VIIb1. However, these arguments are not regarded as conclusive. No Trojan name is indisputably Luwian, and some are most likely not, for instance the seeminglyGreek name "Alaksandu". Additionally, the exact connection between Troy and Arzawa remains unclear, and in some Arzawan states such asMira, Luwian was spoken alongside bothpre-Indo-European languages and later arrivals such as Greek. Finally, the Luwian seal is by no means sufficient to establish that it was spoken by the city's residents, particularly since it is an isolated example found on an easily transportable artifact.[1][2][3]
Proponents of an east to west migration hypothesis on the origin of theEtruscans likeRobert S. P. Beekes place their original homeland adjacent to ancient Troy.Herodotus claims the Etruscans sailed fromLydia (the people of which, Beekes contends, lived north of its classical era location) to Italy. Beekes asserts that the presence of a language related toEtruscan on the island ofLemnos (roughly 65 km fromAthos peninsula in northeastern Greece and 70 km from Troas in Turkey),Lemnian, represents a remnant from those remaining after the migration from the Proto-Tyrsenianurheimat in northwest Asia Minor. More specific evidence related to the Etruscan relation to Troy is the name Hittite record of the city ofTruwiša which is supposedly the etymology of both and the story ofAeneas is connected with the arrival of the Etruscans to Italy.[4] For historical, archaeological, genetic, and linguistic reasons, a relationship between Etruscan and the Indo-European Anatolian languages (Lydian or Luwian) has not been accepted, just as the Lydian origin story reported by Herodotus is no longer considered reliable as demonstrated byDominique Briquel,[5] and a hypothetical Trojan origin of the Etruscans does not enjoy the consensus of scholars specialising in Etruscan civilisation, even if it is cyclically re-proposed by Indo-European linguists and Orientalists without providing evidence.[6][7][8][9] Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which shows no resemblance toTruwiša, and no archaeological or linguistic evidence have been found in Anatolia that might prove the eastern origin of the Etruscans, just as, after more than 90 years of archaeological excavations at Lemnos, nothing has been found in that Greek island that would support a migration fromLemnos toEtruria.[10] LinguistRex E. Wallace summarizes all the problems of the hypothesis of an east to west migration hypothesis on the origin of theEtruscans:[11]
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 Kamania 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.
Moreover, a 2021 archeogenetic analysis of Etruscan individuals concluded that the Etruscans were autochthonous and genetically similar to the Early Iron AgeLatins, and that theEtruscan language, and therefore the other languages of theTyrrhenian family, may be a surviving language of the ones that were widespread in Europe from at least the Neolithic period before the arrival of the Indo-European languages,[12] as already argued by German geneticistJohannes Krause who concluded that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well asBasque,Paleo-Sardinian andMinoan) "developed on the continent in the course of theNeolithic Revolution".[13] The lack of recent Anatolian-related admixture and Iranian-related ancestry among the Etruscans, who genetically joined firmly to the European cluster, might also suggest that the presence of a handful of inscriptions found at Lemnos, in a language related to Etruscan and Raetic, "could represent population movements departing from the Italian peninsula".[12]
Another proposed language isGreek.[14][15] ArchaeologistJames Mellaart in theAmerican Journal of Archaeology summarized some of the arguments in favor of this hypothesis:[15]
When one remembers that Luwian names in -ss and -nd- are rare in the Northwestern corner of Anatolia, Anatolian hieroglyphs absent, and that archaeology suggests that a branch of the Greeks remained behind in this region, whereAhhiyawa should be located, this may just add one more argument to the hypothesis that the "Trojans" called themselves "Akhaiwoi" and spoke some form of Greek.
However the site of Troy is devoid of Greek writings from therelevant historical period, and the current evidence points away from a Greek origin.[14] Several artifacts marked withcarved symbols were discovered byHeinrich Schliemann during his 1873 excavations, and some scholars have identified them as related to various Aegean writing systems includingLinear A.[16] However there is no consensus if these symbols represent writing at all, let alone a recognized writing system.[17]
InAncient Greek literature such as theIliad, Trojan characters are portrayed as having a common language with theAchaeans. However, scholars unanimously interpret this as a poetic convention, and not as evidence that the Trojans were Greek speakers. For instance,Calvert Watkins points out that theSpanish epic poemCantar de mio Cid portrays itsArab characters asSpanish speakers and that theSong of Roland similarly portrays Arabs as speakingFrench.[1][2][3] Some scholars have suggested that Greek-origin names for Trojan characters in theIliad motivate a more serious argument for the Trojans having been Greek speakers. Putative etymologies for legendary names have also been used to argue that the Trojans spoke other languages such asThracian orLydian. These arguments have been countered on the basis that these languages would have been familiar to classical-era bards and could therefore be later inventions.[1][2][3]
Briquel's convincing demonstration that the famous story of an exodus, led by Tyrrhenus from Lydia to Italy, was a deliberate political fabrication created in the Hellenized milieu of the court at Sardis in the early 6th cent. BCE.
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.
It's likely that Basque, Paleo-Sardinian, Minoan, and Etruscan developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution. Sadly, the true diversity of the languages that once existed in Europe will never be known.