Messapian language

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Messapian (also known as Messapic) is an extinct Indo-European language of South-eastern Italy, once spoken in the regions of Apulia and Calabria. It was spoken by the three Iapygian tribes of the region: the Messapians, the Dauni and the Peucetii.

The language, a centum language, has been preserved in about 300 inscriptions dating from the 6th to the 1st century BC.

Messapian may have been an Illyrian language. The Illyrian languages were spoken mainly on the other side of the Adriatic Sea. The link between Messapian and Illyrian is based mostly on personal names found on tomb inscriptions and on classical references, since hardly any traces of the Illyrian language are left.

The Messapian language became extinct after the Roman Empire conquered the region and assimilated the inhabitants.

Inscriptions

Few if any Messapic inscriptions have been definitely deciphered.

From the Vaste inscription (Corpus Inscriptionum Messapicarum 149):

klohi zis thotoria marta pido vastei basta veinan aran in daranthoa vasti staboos xohedonas daxtassi vaanetos inthi trigonoxo a staboos xohetthihi dazimaihi beiliihi inthi rexxorixoa kazareihi xohetthihi toeihithi dazohonnihi inthi vastima daxtas kratheheihi inthi ardannoa poxxonnihi a imarnaihi

For this other Messapic inscription (Grotta della Poesia, Melendugno, Lecce), a translation is given from Cornell University:

klauhi Zis

Dekias Artahias

Thautouri andirahho

daus apistathi vinaihi

Hear Zeus,

Dekias Artahias

to the infernal Thaotor

set up (the rest untranslated)

Here, klauhi probably means "hear" (<PIE *kleu-, "to hear"); Zis has been interpreted as the Messapic Zeus; Dekias is a first name (compare Latin Decius); Artahias is a patronym or nomen gentile with the Messapic genitive -as suffix; Thautori is inferred to be an infernal god because of its placement next to what appears to be an adjective, andirahho (perhaps from PIE *ndher-, "under").

Another Messapic inscription from Galatina is dated to the 2nd century BC:

klohi zis anthos thotorridas ana aprodita apa ogrebis

The separation of the last two elements is uncertain (apa, ogrebis, as shown here). Klohi (as klauhi in the preceding inscription) probably means "listen, hear". Zis may be the Messapic Zeus, as in the preceding inscription. Aprodita is a loanword from Greek Aphrodite. Anthos Thotorridas is a Messapic anthroponym, showing a personal name plus patronymic or nomen gentile in the genitive (-as).

The Messapian language is preserved in a scanty group of perhaps fifty inscriptions, of which only a few contain more than proper names, and in a few glosses in ancient writers collected by Mommsen (Unteritalische Dialekte, p. 70). Unluckily very few originals of the inscriptions are now in existence, though some few remain in the museum at Taranto. The only satisfactory transcripts are those given by:

Mommsen (loc. cit.)
John P Droop in the Annual of the British School at Athens (1905-1906), xli. 137, who includes, for purposes of comparison, as the reader should be warned, some specimens of the 'unfortunately numerous class of forged inscriptions.

A large number of the inscriptions collected by Gamurrini in the appendices to Fabretti's Corpus inscriptionum italicorum are forgeries, and the text of the rest is negligently reported. It is therefore safest to rely on the texts collected by Mommsen, cumbered though they are by the various readings given , to him by various, authorities. In spite, however, of these difficulties some facts of considerable importance have been established.

The inscriptions, so far as it is safe to judge from the copies of the older finds and from Droop's facsimiles of the newer, are all in the Tarentine-Ionic alphabet (with for v and for h). For limits of date 400-150 BC may be regarded as approximately probable; the two most important inscriptions--those of Bindisi and Vastemay perhaps be assigned provisionally to the 3rd century BC. Mommsen's first attempt at dealing with the inscriptions and the language attained solid, if not very numerous, results, chief of which were the genitival character of the endings -aihi and -ihi; and the conjunctional value of inthi (loc. cit. 79-84 sg(1).

Since 1850 little progress has been made. The Norwegian scholar Alf Torp (1853–1916) in Indogermanische Forschungen (1895), V, 195, deals fully with the two inscriptions just mentioned, and practically sums up all that is either certain or probable in the conjectures of his predecessors. Hardly more than a few words can be said to have been separated and translated with certainty--kalatoras (masc. gen. sing.) "of a herald" (Written upon a herald's staff which was once in the Naples Museum); "aran" (acc: sing. fem.) "arable land"; mazzes, "greater" (neut. acc. sing.), the first two syllables of the Latin maiestas; while tepise (3rd sing. aorist indic.) "placed" or "offered"; and forms corresponding to the article (ta = Greek to) seem also reasonably probable.

Some phonetic characteristics of the language may be regarded as quite certain:

the change of PIE short -ǒ- to -ǎ- (as in the last syllable of the genitive kalatoras)
of final -m to -n (as in aran)
of -ni- to -nn- (as in the Messapian praenomen Dazohonnes vs. the Illyrian praenomen Dazonius; the Messapian genitive Dazohonnihi vs. Illyrian genitive Dasonii, etc.)
of -ti- to -tth- (as in the Messapian praenomen Dazetthes vs. Illyrian Dazetius; the Messapian genitive Dazetthihi vs. the Illyrian genitive Dazetii; from a Dazet- stem common in Illyrian and Messapian)
of -si- to -ss- (as in Messapian Vallasso for Vallasio, a derivative from the shorter name Valla)
the loss of final d (as in tepise), and probably of final t (as in -des, perhaps meaning "set", from PIE *dhe-, "to set, put")
the change of voiced aspirates in Proto-Indo-European to plain voiced consonants: PIE *dh- or *-dh- to d- or -d- (Mes. anda *en-dha-*en-, "in"; compare Gr. entha) and PIE *bh- or *-bh- to b- or -b- (Mes. beran *bher-, "to bear")
-au- before (at least some) consonants becomes -ā-: Bāsta, from Bausta
the form penkaheh --which Torp very probably identifies with the Oscan stem pompaio--a derivative of the Proto-Indo-European numeral *penkwe-, "five".

If this last identification be correct it would show, that in Messapian (just as in Venetic and Ligurian) the original labiovelars (k^w, g^w, gh^w) were retained as gutturals and not converted into labials. The change of o to a is exceedingly interesting, being associated with the northern branches of Indo-European such as Germanic, Albanian and Lithuanian, and not appearing in any other southern dialect hitherto known. The Greek Aphrodite appears in the form Aprodita (dat. sing., fem.). The use of double consonants which has been already pointed out in the Messapian inscriptions has been very acutely connected by Deecke with the tradition that the same practice was introduced at Rome by the poet Ennius who came from the Messapian town Rudiae (Festus, p. 293 M).

The proper names in the inscriptions show the regular Italic system of gentile nomen preceded by a personal praenomen; and that some inscriptions show the interesting feature which appears in the Tables of Heraclea of a crest or coat of arms, such as a triangle or an anchor, peculiar to particular families. The same reappears in the Iovilae of Capua and Cumae.

Brunda (Brindisi)

An example of a Messapian placename having an apparent cognate in the Albanian language.

Messapian placename	Proposed Albanian Cognate	Observation
Bréntion (from Messapian bréndon, bréntion) ( Brindisi, Italy)	bri, brî (pl. brirë, brinë) "horn; antler" [< late Proto-Albanian brina < earlier brena]	the word is glossed early as "deer" (akin to Swedish brinde "elk", Latvian briêdis "deer") and then narrowed in meaning to a deer's head (cf. Strabo caput cervi), then by metonymy to its antlers in early Albanian, and by extension any excrescence, thus modern "horn".

Bibliography

W. Deecke in a series of articles in the Rheinisches Museum, xxxvi. 576 sqq.; xxxvii. 373 sqq. ; xl. 131 sqq.; xlii. 226 sqq.
S. Bugge, Bezzenbergers Beiträge, vol. 18.
L. Ceci Notizie degli Scavi (1908), p. 86; and one or two others are recorded by Professor Viola, ibid. 1884, p. 128 sqq. and in Giornale degli Scavi di Pompei, vol. 4 (1878), pp. 70 sqq. The place-names of the district are collected by R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, p. 31; for the Tarentine-Ionic alphabet see ibid. ii., 461.

For a discussion of the important ethnological question of the origin of the Messapians see:

Wolfgang Helbig, Hermes, xi. 257
P. Kretschmer, Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache, pp. 262 sqq., 272 sqq.
H. Hirt, Die sprachliche Stellung der Illyrischen (Festschrift fur H. Kiepert, pp. 179-188)

References

External links

it Civiltà messapica
Maps of Illyria and Illyricum
Archaeologists find western world's oldest map Telegraph Newspaper Online, November 19, 2005.
History of Albanian, with possible links to Messapian.