:''For other uses, see
Iberian languages.''
The 'Iberian language' describes a linguistic group identified with the
Iberian civilisation (7th century BC – 1st century BC), formed in the eastern and south-eastern regions of the
Iberian peninsula. These indigenous languages became
extinct by the 1st to 2nd centuries AD, after being gradually replaced by
Latin.
Iberian seems to be a
language isolate. It is certainly not an
Indo-European language. Links with other languages have been claimed, but they have not been demonstrated. One such proposed link was with the
Basque language (
Basque-Iberism), but this theory is also disputed.
Geographic distribution
The Iberian language spread along the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula.
In the north, the Iberian language reached the south of France up to the
Hérault river. 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 (
Spain), where splendid sculptures of Iberian riders have been found.
Towards inland the exact distribution of the Iberian language is uncertain. It seems that the culture reached the inland through the
Ebro river (''Iberus'' in Latin) up to
Salduie (Zaragoza) but not farther.
Among the pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula it is believed that the following spoke Iberian languages:
Ausetani (northeastern
Catalonia),
Ilergetes (
Lleida and
Huesca up to the Pyrenees),
Indigetes (coast of
Girona),
Laietani (
Barcelona),
Cassetani (
Tarragona),
Ilercavones (
Murcia and
Levante up to Tarragona),
Edetani (
València,
Castelló and
Teruel),
Contestani (València,
Alacant,
Cartagena and
Albacete),
Bastetani (
Granada,
Almería and Murcia) and
Oretani (Jaén,
Ciudad Real, Albacete and
Cuenca).
Turduli and
Turdetani are believed to be of
Tartessian language.
History
The origin of the language is unknown. There are three main hypotheses to explain the origin of the language:
★ African hypothesis: proposes that the language arrived from the north of Africa. This hypothesis links Iberian with the
Berber languages.
★ Native hypothesis: assumes that Iberian language was the language of the native people settled in the Iberian peninsula in the Neolithic.
★ European hypothesis: a recent theory, links the arrival of Basques/
Aquitani and Iberians to the Pyrenees and the Iberian peninsula with the arrival of the
urnfield culture.
Writing
The most ancient texts date from the fifth century BC, and a written form was used from then until the language's demise. It is suggested that most of the texts arise from an imitation of the Greek (until the 2nd century BCE) and Latin (from the 1st century BC onwards).
The fact that only a limited number of inscriptions in this language have surfaced so far (most of them short votive texts) is a challenge for translation efforts. The most important texts are the six inscriptions known as ''Plomos'' (Spanish for "lead", on which the inscriptions were made) found in the Iberian settlement and sanctuary known as ''La Serreta'', near
Alcoy in the
Alicante province. "Lead #1" is the longest text known in Iberian, with 342 characters. Most translations have been attempted based on this one.
The Iberian language is written in three different scripts as a result of the different cultures the people were in contact with.
Greek Alphabet
The
Greek alphabet, in its
Ionic variant, was the base of what is called today the Greco-Iberian alphabet. The Iberians came to use this Greek alphabet, slightly modified. Most of the aforementioned ''Leads of Alcoy'' are written in this version.
Latin Alphabet
Only a few cases of Iberian written in the
Latin alphabet are extant. Only two short texts and a few personal names remain.
Iberian Alphabet
The
Iberian alphabet, also known as the Iberian script, is a
semi-syllabary of the Iberians' own. It is this that was used the longest and most widely. It seems clear the Iberian script originated with the
Tartessian script, used in the southwestern peninsula to write the
Tartessian language
The Iberian script has two variants: the middle, or southeastern (in
Jaén and
Albacete), whose signs have a resemblance to the Tartessian script, and the northeastern, or levantine. The northeastern was the more widespread of the two and was later adapted for
Celtiberian.
The northeastern script was deciphered in 1922 by
Manuel Gómez-Moreno Martínez, while the first attempts at translating the southeastern script were made by
Ulrich Schmoll in 1961 and perfected by subsequent linguists, chief among them
Jürgen Untermann.
Description
Current Extent of Linguistic Knowledge
We know very little for certain about Iberian. The investigation of the language is past its initial phase of transcription and compiling of material, and is currently in the phase of identifying grammatical elements in the texts.
The hypotheses that we have are unconfirmed, and will remain so with some degree of certainty unless the discovery of a
bilingual text allows linguists to confirm these deductions.
Phonology
Vowels
Iberian has five
vowels, the same as in
Spanish or
Basque, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, the front vowels (a, e, i) appearing more frequently than the back vowels. Although there are indications of a nasal vowel (<>), this is thought to be an
allophone. It does not seem that there were differences in vowel length if judged by Greek transcriptions, if this is correct then Iberian uses the long '' (
Greek '') as opposed to the short epsilon (
Greek ) ''.
Diphthongs
It seems that
diphthongs were declined by [vowel] + [closed vowel], attesting to the /ai/ (śaitabi), /ei/ (neitin), and /au/ (lauŕ). Untermann observed that the diphthong /ui/ could only be found in the first cluster.
Semivowels
The possibility has been found for the
semivowels /j/ (in words such as ''aiun'' o ''iunstir'') and /w/, although this only in loanwords such as ''diuiś'' from
Gaulish. This has cast doubt that semivowels really existed in Iberian outside of foreign borrowings (and diphthongs).
Consonants
★ Vibrants: the vibrants
= /r/ and = . There is unanimity among linguists studying Iberian that is a simple vibrant, or flap. Correa has advanced the hypothesis that is a simple vibrant and a compound vibrant, or trill. More recent hypotheses have proposed that is an uvular fricative (Ballestar) or a retroflex vibrant (Rodriguez). Neither ''r'' appears at the start of a word, the same as with Basque.
★ Sibilants: there are two sibilants voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative. Rodriguez proposes that is the alveolar "s" and would be an alveolar or apical fricative while Basque also has two sibilants: ''s'' as apical alveolar and ''z'' as laminal alveolar, which could correspond to and
★ Laterals: the lateral: , is normally interpreted as /l/. This is extremely rare in final position and it could be that the distribution is on occasions complementary with .
★ Nasals:
★
★ The is a normal alveolar /n/
★
★ The rarely appears in initial position. Velaza proposes that it could be a variant of /n/, backed by the example of iumstir/iunstir. José A. Correa advances the possibility that it may be a geminated or strong nasal. Rodríguez Ramos notes the idea that it could be a variant of /n/ in cases that it nasalizes the preceding vowel.
★
★ There is a certain controversy over the letter . While it's thought that it's some type of nasal, there is no certainty as to the exact value. Several linguists have proposed the value /na/, based on similarities with texts written in the Greek Alphabet, as there are similarities between the suffixs '' / ''-nai'', and in the onomastic elements '' / ''-nabar-''. Another part of this theory seems to contradict itself with the transcription of '' into Latin as VMARBELES. Correa proposes that this is a labialized nasal. It is not even clear that the sign is always pronounced in the same form. Ramos considers it a nasalized vowel, produced by progressive nasalization.
★ Plosives: there are five plosives.
| unvoiced | voiced |
| velar | /k/ | |
| dental | /t/ | /d/ |
| labial | | /b/ |
:The evidence indicates the non-existence of the phoneme /p/ as it is not documented in either the Greek alphabet nor in the dual Iberian systems. It is only found in Latin inscriptions naming native Iberians and is thought to be an allophone of /b/.
:It has been indicated that the phoneme /b/ would on occasions be pronounced similar to /w/ (this would be explained by the frequency of the sign /bu/), as such it could have a nasalized pronunciation.
Morphology
There are a number of known affixes, especially applied to last names. For the Iberian language these seem to be postpositional, and apparently more agglutinative than declined.
The most well known are the following.
:''-ar'': applied to proper names to mark possession.
:''-en'': of a similar or identical use to ''-ar''. ''-en'' or ''aren'' are used for Basque genitives.
:''-ka'': seems to indicate the person who receives something
:''-te'': seems to indicate the agent, or ablative
:''-sken'': found on coins, applied to the names of a city or tribe to indicate origin or a plural genitive
:''-k'': has been proposed on occasions to mark the plural. ''-k'' is a plural mark in Basque.
People's Names
Thanks to the Latin Inscription of the plaque of Ascoli, which includes a list of Iberian leaders which was analyzed by Hugo Schuchardt the forms of Iberian proper names have been unraveled. Iberian names are formed by two interchangeable elements, each usually formed of two syllables, which are written together. For example, the element "iltiŕ" can be found in the following names: ''iltiŕaŕker'', ''iltiŕbaś'', ''iltiŕtikeŕ'', ''tursiltiŕ'', ''baiseiltiŕ'' or ''bekoniltiŕ''. This discovery was a giant step, from this moment it was possible to indicate with confidence the names of persons in the texts.
The components of names are: ''abaŕ'', ''aibe'', ''aile'', ''ain'', ''aitu'', ''aiun'', ''aker'', ''albe'', ''aloŕ'', ''an'', ''anaŕ'', ''aŕbi'', ''aŕki'', ''aŕs'', ''asai'', ''aster'', ''atin'', ''atun'', ''aunin'', ''auŕ'', ''austin'', ''baiser'', ''balaŕ'', ''balke'', ''bartaś'', ''baś'', ''bastok'', ''bekon'', ''belauŕ'', ''beleś'', ''bels'', ''bene'', ''beŕ'', ''beri'', ''beŕon'', ''betan'', ''betin'', ''bikir'', ''bilos'', ''bin'', ''bir'', ''bitu'', ''biuŕ'', ''bolai'', ''boneś'', ''boŕ'', ''bos'', ''boton'', ''boutin'', ''ekes'', ''ekaŕ'', ''eler'', ''ena'', ''esto'', ''eten'', ''eter'', ''iar'', ''iaun'', ''ibeś'', ''ibeis'', ''ike'', ''ikoŕ'', ''iltiŕ'', ''iltur'', ''inte'', ''iskeŕ'', ''istan'', ''iunstir'', ''iur'', ''kaisur'', ''kakeŕ'', ''kaltuŕ'', ''kani'', ''kaŕes'', ''kaŕko'', ''katu'', ''keŕe'', ''kibaś'', ''kine'', ''kitaŕ'', ''kon'', ''koŕo'', ''koŕś'', ''kuleś'', ''kurtar'', ''lako'', ''lauŕ'', ''leis'', ''lor'', ''lusban'', ''nalbe'', ''neitin'', ''neŕse'', ''nes'', ''niś'', ''nios'', ''oŕtin'', ''sakaŕ'', ''sakin'', ''saltu'', ''śani'', ''śar'', ''seken'', ''selki'', ''sike'', ''sili'', ''sine'', ''sir'', ''situ'', ''soket'', ''sor'', ''sosin'', ''suise'', ''taker'', ''talsku'', ''tan'', ''tanek'', ''taŕ'', ''tarban'', ''taŕtin'', ''taś'', ''tautin'', ''teita'', ''tekeŕ'', ''tibaś'', ''tikeŕ'', ''tikirs'', ''tikis'', ''tileis'', ''tolor'', ''tuitui'', ''tumar'', ''tuŕś'', ''turkir'', ''tortin'', ''ulti'', ''unin'', ''uŕke'', ''ustain'', ''ḿbaŕ'', ''nḿkei''.
In some cases linguists have encountered simple names, with only one element for a suffix: BELES, AGER-DO and BIVR-NO are not in the plaque of Ascoli, ''neitin'' in Ullastret and ''lauŕ-to'', ''bartas-ko'' or ''śani-ko'' in other Iberian texts. More rarely there have been indications of an infix, which can be ''-i-'', ''-ke-'' or ''-bo-'' (Unterman used ''oto-iltiŕ'' in front of ''oto-ke-iltiŕ'' or with AEN-I-BELES). In rare cases Untermann also encountered an element ''is-'' or ''o-'' prefacing a proper name (''is-betartiker''; ''o-tikiŕtekeŕ''; O-ASAI).
In the elements that formed Iberian names it's common to encounter patterns of variation: as in eter/eten/ete with the same variations as ''iltur''/''iltun''/''iltu''; ''kere''/''keres'' as ''lako''/''lakos'' ; or ''alos''/''alor''/''alo'' and ''bikis''/''bikir''/''biki'').
Known Terms
Further reading
★ Correa, J.A. (1994), "La lengua ibérica", ''Revista Española de Lingüística'' 24/2, 263-287.
★ Quintanilla, A., ''Estudios de Fonología Ibérica'', Vitoria-Gasteiz 1998, ISBN 84-8373-041-3.
★ Rodríguez Ramos, Jesús, ''Análisis de Epigrafía Íbera'', Vitoria-Gasteiz 2004, ISBN 84-8373-678-0.
See also
★ Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula
External links
★ Iberian Epigraphy by Jesús Rodríguez Ramos
★ Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)
★ Interesting reproductions of many different inscriptions and its transcription. Iberian alphabets. In Spanish
★ A very detailed description of the reconstructed phonetic of the language, in Spanish
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