Lemnian language: Encyclopedia II - Lemnian language - Relationships to Other Languages

Lemnian language - Relationships to Other Languages

Characters similar to those used in Lemnos Stele inscription are also found on some pottery fragments on Lemnos. The Lemnian inscriptions use an alphabet similar to that used to write the Etruscan language and the older Phrygian inscriptions, all derived from Euboean scripts which had been adopted some time during the Hellenic Dark Ages (circa 1200 BCE). These scripts are ultimately of West Semitic origin, but since the scripts were widely used for Hellenic languages, mere use of these scripts does not sufficie to show a relationship between Lemnian and the Semetic language family.

A relationship between Lemnian and Etruscan, sometimes grouped together as Tyrrhenian or Aegean languages is largely accepted because of the strong connections between vocabulary and grammar. For example, both Etruscan and Lemnian share two unique dative cases, masculine *-si and feminine-collective *-ale, shown both on the Lemnos Stele (Hulaie-ši "for Hulaie", Φukiasi-ale "for the Phocaean") and in inscriptions written in Etruscan (aule-si "To Aule" on the Cippus Perusinus as well as the inscription mi mulu Laris-ale Velχaina-si "I was blessed for Laris Velchaina"). They also share the masculine genitive in *-s and a simple past tense in *-a-i (Etruscan <-e> as in ame "was" (< *amai); Lemnian <-ai> as in šivai "lived"). Such strong evidence such as this provides little doubt of their true kinship.

Like Etruscan, the Lemnian language appears to have had a four-vowel system consisting of "i", "o", "a" and "e". It lacks "u" which is curious because this completely defies linguistic universals. Since vowel systems such as these without "u" are non-existent, it is strongly likely that what we transliterate as "o" was in fact meant to record a high, back, rounded vowel instead (written in IPA as /u/). This is not unusual considering that different languages may take the same letter to transcribe different sounds. Note for example how "u" in English is used to write a front vowel in French muet, a sound that does not exist in standard English. Note also that in English, the "o" may also denote /u/, e.g. in the word "to".

Beyond Etruscan and Rhaetian, further relationships to Lemnian become more tentative and highly debated. There is a possible affiliation of Eteocypriot to the above Tyrrhenian grouping. Texts in Eteocypriot (few are known, making it difficult to determine language affinity) have been found in the vicinity of the Lemnian language sphere, amidst the Aegean islands.

Scholars now generally agree that these Tyrrhenian languages are not members of the Indo-European family and any connections with the Anatolian languages in particular are probably due to areal influence at best. At the present time without strong evidence one way or another, most academics remain conservative about external connections and consider Tyrrhenian, however it may be eventually defined, an isolate family.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Relationships to Other Languages", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki