Tartessian language

Tartessian

Spoken in Southwest Iberian Peninsula

Extinct after 5th century BC

unclassified

Language codes

ISO 639-3 txr

Tartessian language in the context of paleohispanic languages

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The Tartessian language is the extinct Paleohispanic language of inscriptions in the Southwestern script found in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula: mainly in the south of Portugal (Algarve and southern Alentejo), but also in Spain (south of Extremadura and western Andalusia). There are 95 of these inscriptions with the longest having 82 readable signs. Around one-third of them have been found in Early Iron Age necropolises or other Iron Age burial sites associated with rich complex burials. It is usual to date them from the 7th century BC and consider the southwestern script to be the most ancient paleohispanic script with characters most closely resembling specific Phoenician letter forms found in inscriptions dated to c. 825 BC.

1 Meaning of the name
2 History
3 Writing
4 Classification attempts
5 Texts
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading

Meaning of the name

Researchers use the term "Tartessian" to refer to the language as attested on the stelae written in the southwestern script (Untermann 1997, Koch 2010, &c.), but some researchers would prefer to reserve the term Tartessian for the language of the core Tartessian zone, attested for these researchers with some graffiti (Correa 2009, p. 277; de Hoz 2007, p.33; 2010, pp. 362-364) like the Huelva graffiti (Untermann 1997, pp.102-103; Mederos and Ruiz 2001) and may be with some stelae (Correa 2009, p. 276): for example Villamanrique de la Condesa (J.52.1). These researchers consider that the language of the inscriptions found outside the core Tartessian zone would be either a different language (Villar 2000, p. 423; Rodríguez Ramos 2009, p.8; de Hoz 2010, p.473) or maybe a Tartessian dialect (Correa 2009, p.278), and so they would prefer to identify the language of the stelae with a different title, namely "southwestern" (Villar 2000; de Hoz 2010) or "south-Lusitanian" (Rodríguez Ramos 2009). There is general agreement that the core area of Tartessos is around Huelva extending to the valley of the Guadalquivir, while the area under Tartessian influence is much wider (Koch 2010 2011 - see maps). Three of the 95 stelae plus some graffiti, belong to the core area: Alcala del Rio (J.53.1), Villamanrique de la Condesa (J.52.1) and Puente Genil (J.51.1). Four have also been found in the Middle Guadiana (in Extremadura) and the rest have been found in the south of Portugal (Algarve and Lower Alentejo) where the Greek and Roman sources locate the Pre-Roman Cempsi and Saefs, Cynetes and the Celtici peoples.

History

The most confident dating is for the Tartessian inscription (J.57.1) in the necropolis at Medellin, Badajoz, Spain to 650/625 BC.^[1] Further confirmatory dates for the Medellin necropolis include painted ceramics of the 7th-6th centuries BC.^[2]

In addition a graffito on a Phoenician sherd dated to the early to mid 7th century BC and found at the Phoenician settlement of Doña Blanca near Cadiz has been identified as Tartessian, but is only two signs long. The lecture of the graffito was ]tetu[ or may be ]tute[ and it doesn't show the syllable-vowel redundancy characteristic of the southwestern script (Correa and Zamora 2008).

The script used in the mint of Salacia (Alcácer do Sal, Portugal) from around 200 BC may be related to the tartessian script, though it has no syllable-vowel redundancy, violations of this are known, but it is not clear if the language of this mint corresponds with the language of the stelae (de Hoz 2010).

The Turdetani of the Roman period are generally considered the heirs of the Tartessian culture. Strabo mentions that "The Turdetanians are ranked as the wisest of the Iberians; and they make use of an alphabet, and possess records of their ancient history, poems, and laws written in verse that are six thousand years old, as they assert."^[3] It is not known when Tartessian ceased to be spoken, but Strabo (writing c. 7 BC) records that "The Turdetanians ... and particularly those that live about the Baetis, have completely changed over to the Roman mode of life, not even remembering their own language any more."^[4]

Writing

As discussed above, Tartessian inscriptions are in the Southwestern script, also known as the Tartessian or South-lusitanian script. Like all the paleohispanic scripts, with the exception of the Greco-Iberian alphabet, Tartessian uses syllabic glyphs for plosive consonants and alphabetic letters for other consonants. Thus it is a mixture of an alphabet and a syllabary, a system called a semi-syllabary. Some researchers believe these scripts are descended solely from the Phoenician alphabet, others that the Greek alphabet had an influence as well.

The Tartessian script is very similar to the southeastern Iberian script, both in the shapes of the signs and in their values. The main difference is that southeastern Iberian script does not redundantly mark the vocalic values of syllabic characters. This was discovered by Ulrich Schmoll and allows the classification of most of the characters into vowels, consonants and syllabic characters. Unlike the northeastern Iberian script the decipherment of the southeastern Iberian script and specially the southwestern script is not still closed, because there are a significant group of signs without consensus value among the researchers that study this script (Correa 1989, Untermann 1990, Correia 1996, Rodríguez Ramos 2002; de Hoz 2010). Nevertheless, it is commonly accepted that Tartessian did not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced consonants—[t] from [d], [p] from [b], or [k] from [ɡ].

Classification attempts

Tartessian is usually treated as unclassified (Correa 2009, Rodríquez Ramos 2002, de Hoz 2010) though several researchers had tried to relate Tartessian with known families of languages with the strongest claim being for a Celtic affiliation:

Anatolian:
- Positive: S. Wikander (1966) had proposed that the formulaic expression bare nabe keenti/keeni, was parallel to the Lycian form sijenii found in funerary inscriptions and equivalent to Latin situs est. This would be the PIE root *k´ei- 'to lie' (cfr. Greek keimai, Sanskrit śéte) with a suffix equal to that of the Hittite type ijannai verbs. According to Wikander, the flexion keenti/keeni indicate respectively the singular and the plural as in the Anatolian conjugation *-hi. Also in nabe we should recognize the PIE ending *- bhi, which indicates the locative case. Another element of the alleged Anatolian affinity is an ending -el that would indicate the genitive case.
- Negative: Rodríguez Ramos (2002) refuses the Anatolian hypothesis, because he argues that the morpheme -ti is incompatible with Anatolian phonetics.

Celtic:
- Unclassified language with Celtic features: Some Tartessian features are interpreted as Celtic or Indo-European, but the largest part of the language remains inexplicable from the Celtic or Indoeuropean point of view.
  - Positive: Correa (1989, 251) had identified some Indo-European or Celtic names and elements in the Tartessian inscriptions and suggested the possible adscription of the Tartessian language to the Celtic family. Untermann (1997) added other names and elements with possible Indo-European or Celtic interpretation. Ballester (2004) thought some Tartessian elements have a Celtic character. Villar in 2004 suggested that Tartessian inscriptions contain items of 'an early Gaulish' within a non-Celtic and probably non-Indo-European matrix language making the point that the Celtic in the Tartessian inscriptions shows some linguistic features more akin with those in Gaulish than in Celtiberian.
  - Negative: Correa (1995, p. 612) in later works had abandoned this hypothesis, mainly for the absence on Tartessian of the expected nominal declination of a Celtic or western Indo-European language. Rodríguez Ramos (2002, 90-91) refuses the Celtic hypothesis, because he argues that the vocalism of the anthroponyms found in the inscriptions is incompatible with Celtic phonetics. Although he doesn't reject the Indo-European hypothesis, he still considers it as highly unlikely. De Hoz (401-402) points to the absence of significant evidence of Indo-European verbal inflection and indicates that the supposed Indo-European evidence in southwestern inscriptions are scarce and the result of conflicting segmentations based only on the possibility of getting something apparently Indo-European, leaving behind extensive waste that cannot be interpreted in the same way. In addition, agrees with previous Rodriguez Ramos (2002, 90-91) arguments about vocalism and points out that the structure of syllables and words are not identified at all with what we would expect in an Indo-European language.
- Fully Celtic language with non-Celtic borrowings: Tartessian language is interpreted as a fully Celtic language, so the Tartessian inscriptions can be translated.
  - Positive: Koch (2010 and 2011) claims that much of the Tartessian corpus can be interpreted as Celtic, with forms possibly of sufficient density to support the conclusion that Tartessian was a Celtic language, rather than a non-Celtic language containing a relatively small proportion of Celtic names and loanwords. Koch (2011 p. 2) claims that Francisco Villar now maintains that Tartessian is a language in the Celtic family. Koch maintains he has achieved valid segmentations and has established Indo-European inflections such as for the verb stem naŕk^ee- which he thinks means the equivalent of "rest in peace" from Indo-European *(s)ner- 'bind, fasten with thread or cord' (cf. Greek for 'grow stiff, numb, dead') and the possible Common Celtic verb stem *lag- (cf.Old Irish laigid meaning 'lies down')' from Indo-European *leg^h meaning 'lie', e.g. for present 3rd plural active:
    - naŕk^eeni (J.1.2, J.7.2)
    - naŕk^eentⁱi (J.12.1, J.16.1, J.18.1, J.19.2)
    - naŕk^eenii (J.2.1)
    - naŕken (J.7.5)
    - lakⁱintⁱi (J.12.4) (suggested pronunciation laginti)
    - lak^eentⁱi (J.53.1)
    - ]ntⁱi at the end a fragmentary inscription (Monto Novo do Castelinho)
  - Negative: A critical view of Koch's work that considers that it is not really convincing and that points out inconsistencies, in form and content, and ad hoc solutions, but recognizes that it is a strong vote for the Celtic hypothesis, can be found at Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.09.57^[5].

Texts

Examples from the Tartessian inscriptions (Untermann's numbering system or location name if newer in brackets references the inscriptions in the examples, e.g. (J.19.1) or (Mesas do Castelinho)):

Mesas do Castelinho (Almodôvar) – longest Tartessian text known at present with 82 signs (80 of which have an identifiable phonetic value) and complete with substitution of well-known Tartessian formula b^aare naŕk^ee[n--] in damaged portion: (Guerra 2009)

1) tⁱilek^uurk^uuark^aast^aab^uut^eeb^aantⁱileb^ooiirerob^aarenaŕk^e[en---]aφiuu

2) lii^*eianiit^aa

3) eanirak^aalt^eet^aao

4) b^eesaru?an

Notes:

tⁱilek^uur is proposed as a personal name.
[en---] depends on the Indo-European inflection that applies in this case to the damaged portion containing the well-known Tartessian formula b^aare naŕk^ee[n---]. This formula contains two groups of Tartessian stems that appear to be inflected as verbs: naŕk^ee, naŕk^een, naŕk^eeii, naŕk^eenii, naŕk^eentⁱi, naŕk^eenai and b^aare, b^aaren, b^aareii and b^aarentⁱi from considering other inscriptions. (Guerra 2009)

Fonte Velha (Bensafrim) (J.53.1):

'lok^oob^ooniirab^oot^ooaŕaiaik^aalt^eelok^onanenaŕ[-]ek^aa?ⁱiśiink^oolob^ooiit^eerob^aareb^eet^easiioonii (Untermann 1997)

Herdade da Abobada (Almodôvar) (J.12.1)

ir´ualk^uusie : naŕk^eentⁱimub^aat^eerob^aare?^aat^aaneat^ee (Untermann 1997)

References

^ Almagro-Gorbea, M (2004). "Inscripciones y grafitos tartesicos de la necropolis orientalizante de Medellin". Palaeohispanica: 4.13–44.
^ Ruiz, M M (1989). "Las necropolis tartesicas: prestigio, poder y jerarquas". Tartessos: Arqueologica Protohistorica del Bajo Guadalquivir: 269.
^ Strabo, Geography, book 3, chapter 1, section 6.
^ Strabo, Geography, book 3, chapter 2, section 15.
^ Zeidler, Jürgenn (2011). "Barry W. Cunliffe, John T. Koch (ed.), Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives from Archaeology, Genetics, Language, and Literature. Celtic Studies Publications 15. Oxford/ Oakville, CT: Oxbow Books, 2010. Pp. vii, 384. ISBN 9781842174104". Bryn Mawr Classical Review]].