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Phrygian language

Extinct Indo-European language of central Anatolia

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Phrygian ethno-linguistic homogeneity is debatable. Ancient Greek authors used "Phrygian" as an umbrella term to describe a vast ethno-cultural complex located mainly in the central areas of Anatolia rather than a name of a single "tribe" or "people". Plato observed that some Phrygian words resembled Greek ones.

Because of the fragmentary evidence of Phrygian, its exact position within the Indo-European language family is uncertain. Phrygian shares important features mainly with Greek, but also with Armenian and Albanian. Evidence of a Thraco-Armenian separation from Phrygian and other Paleo-Balkan languages at an early stage, Phrygian's classification as a centum language, and the high frequency of phonetic, morphological, and lexical isoglosses shared with Greek, have led to a current consensus which regards Greek as the closest relative of Phrygian.

Discovery and decipherment

Ancient authors like Herodotus and Hesychius have preserved a few dozen words assumed to be Phrygian, so-called glosses. In modern times the first monument with a Phrygian text, found at Ortaköy (classical Orcistus), was described in 1752. In 1800 at Yazılıkaya (classical Nakoleia) two more inscriptions were discovered. On one of them the word ΜΙΔΑΙ (Midai), 'to Midas', could be read, which prompted the idea that they were part of a building, possibly the grave, of the legendary Phrygian king Midas. Later, when Western archeologists, historians and other scholars began to travel through Anatolia to become acquainted with the geographical background of Homer's world and the New Testament, more monuments were discovered. By 1862 sixteen Phrygian inscriptions were known, among them a few Greek-Phrygian bilinguals. This allowed German scholar Andreas David Mordtmann to undertake the first serious attempt to decipher the script, though he overstressed the parallels of Phrygian to Armenian, which led to some false conclusions. After 1880, the Scottish Bible scholar William Mitchell Ramsay discovered many more inscriptions. In the 20th century, the understanding of Phrygian has increased, due to a steady flow of new texts, more reliable transcriptions, and better knowledge of the Indo-European sound change laws. The alphabet is now well-known, though minor revisions of the rarer signs of the alphabet are still possible; one sign ( = /j/, transcribed y) was only securely identified in 1969.

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