Iberian language
The Iberian language is the language or family of languages of an indigenous western European people, identified by Greek and Roman sources, who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the pre-Migration Era. An ancient Iberian culture can be identified as existing between the 7th and 1st centuries BC, at least.
Iberian, like all the other Paleohispanic languages except Basque, was extinct by the 1st to 2nd centuries AD. It had been replaced gradually by Latin, following the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Iberian language is unclassified: while the scripts used to write it have been deciphered to various extents, the language itself remains largely unknown. Links with other languages have been suggested, especially the Basque language, based largely on the observed similarities between the numerical systems of the two. In contrast, the Punic language of Carthaginian settlers was Semitic, while Indo-European languages of the peninsula during the Iron Age include the now extinct Hispano-Celtic and Lusitanian languages, Ionic Greek, and Latin, which formed the basis for modern Iberian Romance languages, but none of these were related to the Iberian language.
Geographic distribution
Iberian inscriptions are found along the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula, reaching up to the river Hérault in the south of France. Important written remains have been found in Ensérune, between Narbonne and Béziers in France, in an oppidum with mixed Iberian and Celtic elements. The southern limit would be Porcuna, in Jaén, where splendid sculptures of Iberian riders have been found. Further inland, the exact distribution of the Iberian language inscriptions is uncertain. It seems that the culture reached the interior through the Ebro river as far as Salduie, but no further.Among the pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, the following might have spoken the Iberian language: Ausetani, Ilergetes, Indigetes, Laietani, Cessetani, Ilercavones, Edetani, Contestani, Bastetani and Oretani. Turduli and Turdetani are believed to be of the Tartessian language group.
For some scholars, such as Velaza, Iberian could have been the language spoken by the autochthonous population of these territories, while for others, such as De Hoz, Iberian could have been more of a lingua franca.
History
The origin of the language is unknown. Although Iberian ceased to be written in the 1st century AD, it may have survived in some areas until the Visigothic period, according to Ramón Menéndez Pidal.There are several theories about the geographical origin of Iberian. According to the Catalan theory, the Iberian language originated in northern Catalonia, where the earliest Iberian inscriptions are documented. Its expansion towards the north and south would have been due to broad population movements in times shortly before the first written documents, from the 11th to the 10th century BC, given that the Iberian language appears homogeneous in Iberian texts and, if it were of greater antiquity, the development of dialects should be evident. The presence of non-interpretable elements, such as Iberian anthroponyms amongst inscriptions in this area has not been considered statistically significant.
Writing
The oldest Iberian inscriptions date to the 6th century BC or maybe the 5th century BC and the latest ones date from the end of the 1st century BC or maybe the beginning of the 1st century AD. More than two thousand Iberian inscriptions are currently known. Most are short texts on ceramic with personal names, which are usually interpreted as ownership marks. Many coins minted by Iberian communities during the Roman Republic have legends in Iberian. The longest Iberian texts were made on lead plaques; the most extensive is from Yátova with more than six hundred signs.Three different scripts have remained for the Iberian language:
- Northeastern Iberian script
- * Dual variant
- * Non-dual variant
- Southeastern Iberian script
- Greco-Iberian alphabet.
Northeastern (or Levantine) Iberian script
All the paleohispanic scripts, with the exception of the Greco-Iberian alphabet, share a common distinctive typological characteristic: they use signs with syllabic value for the occlusives and signs with monophonematic value for the remaining consonants and for vowels. From a writing systems point of view, they are neither alphabets nor syllabaries; rather, they are "mixed" scripts that are normally identified as semi-syllabaries. Regarding their origin, there is no agreement among researchers; for some linguists, they are linked only to the Phoenician alphabet, while others see the Greek alphabet as playing a part.
Southeastern (or Meridional) Iberian script
The southeastern Iberian script is a semi-syllabary too, but it is more similar to the Tartessian script than to the northeastern Iberian script. The southeastern Iberian inscriptions have been found mainly in the southeastern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula: eastern Andalusia, Murcia, Albacete, Alicante and Valencia. This script is not completely deciphered.Image:Plom I de La Serreta.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Lead plaque from la Serreta using the Greco-Iberian alphabet
Greco-Iberian alphabet
The Greco-Iberian alphabet is a direct adaptation of an Ionic variant of a Greek alphabet to the specificities of the Iberian language. The inscriptions that use the Greco-Iberian alphabet have been found mainly in Alicante and Murcia.Phonology
Very little is known for certain about Iberian. The investigation of the language is past its initial phase of transcription and compiling material, and is currently in the phase of identifying grammatical elements in the texts. The hypotheses currently proposed are unconfirmed, and are likely to remain so unless the discovery of a bilingual text allows linguists to confirm their deductions.Vowels
Iberian appears to have five vowels commonly transcribed as a e i o u. Some other languages on the peninsula such as Basque and modern Spanish also have such systems. Although five-vowel systems are extremely common all over the world, it has been suggested that this may point to a Sprachbund amongst the ancient languages of the Iberian peninsula.The unrounded vowels appear more frequently than the rounded vowels. Although there are indications of a nasal vowel, this is thought to be an allophone. Judging by Greek transcriptions, it seems that there were no vowel length distinctions; if this is correct then Iberian uses the long ē as opposed to the short epsilon.
Diphthongs
It seems that the second element of diphthongs was always a closed vowel, as in ai, ei, and au. Untermann observed that the diphthong ui could only be found in the first cluster.Semivowels
It is possible that Iberian had the semivowels and . The fact that is lacking in native words casts doubt on whether semivowels really existed in Iberian outside of foreign borrowings and diphthongs.Consonants
- Rhotics: There are two rhotics r and ŕ. Iberian specialists do not agree about the phonetic values assigned to either rhotic. Correa hypothesized that ŕ was an alveolar flap and r was a "compound vibrant", that is, a trill. Later, Rodríguez Ramos suggested that ŕ was an alveolar flap and r is a retroflex flap in line with Ballester who thought that r represents a uvular fricative. However, Ballester later changed his hypothesis and took r for an alveolar flap and ŕ for the alveolar trill. Neither r nor ŕ occurs word-initially, which is also the case in Basque.
- Sibilants: There are two sibilants s and ś. The distinction is unclear, and there are multiple proposals. Ballester theorizes that s was an alveolar and ś was an alveolo-palatal. Rodríguez Ramos proposes that ś was alveolar and s was an affricate, either dental/alveolar or palatal . This proposal coincides with the observation by Correa on adaptations of Gallic names in Iberian texts.
- Laterals: The lateral l is normally interpreted as. It is extremely rare in final position and it could be that the distribution is on occasion complementary with ŕ: aŕikal-er ~ aŕikaŕ-bi.
- Nasals:
- * The n was probably alveolar.
- * m: Researchers studying Iberian do not agree on the kind of nasal represented by this letter. The letter m rarely occurs word-initially. Velaza hypothesizes it could be an allophone of medial n, as shown in the example of iumstir/iunstir. José A. Correa suggests it may be a geminate or strong nasal. Ballester considers it to be a labialized nasal in Iberian and in Celtiberian. Rodríguez Ramos mentions that it could be an allophone of n where it nasalizes the preceding vowel.
- * There is some controversy over the sign transcribed as ḿ. While it is thought to be some type of nasal, there is no certainty as to its phonetic value. Several linguists agree on the value, based on similarities with texts written in the Greek alphabet, as there are similarities between the suffixes -ḿi / -nai, and in the onomastic elements -ḿbar- / -nabar-. Another part of this theory seems to contradict itself with the transcription of ḿbar-beleś into Latin as VMARBELES. Correa proposes that it was a labialized nasal. It is not even clear that the sign is always pronounced in the same form. Rodríguez Ramos considers it a nasalized vowel, produced by progressive nasalization.
- Plosives: There are five plosives.
Morphology
The best-known are the following: