Thracian language: Encyclopedia II - Thracian language - Classification

Thracian language - Classification

There are enough Thracian examples with characteristic Satem sound-shifts to include Thracian in the Satem group of Indo-European languages. Thracian is often considered to have been on the same language branch as the extinct Dacian language (viewed as a northern dialect of Thracian), though some Thracologists think Dacian may have been on a separate branch. Some scholars see a relation between Thracian and the ancient Macedonian language, or the Phrygian language.

Older models often linked Thracian to the Illyrian language, or to the Armenian language, but recent studies do not make such a connection apparent.

Relationships between Thracian and various living Indo-European languages have been proposed, but these connections are hard to prove, because not enough of the Thracian language has survived.

Thracian language - Connections to Albanian

Many Thracologists suggest that Thracian may be related to the Albanian language, and there are some cognates between Thracian and Albanian, but this may indicate only language interaction between the groups and not language affinity. There have been significant changes in the Albanian language since Thracian times, and a Thracian link is difficult to demonstrate. Still, the possible relation of Thracian to Albanian is given much consideration even today.

There are a restricted number of strong cognates between Thracian and Albanian: the Thracian inscription mezenai on the Duvanli gold ring has been unanimously linked to Albanian mëz (=colt), as well as to Romanian mânz (=colt), and it is agreed that Thracian mezenai meant 'horseman'; Thracian manteia (=blackberry) is agreed to be cognate to Albanian man (=mulberry). It may also be connected to the Slavic mantiya (=cloak). Sorin Paliga, a linguist at the academy of Bucharest, recently linked Romanian buza (=lip) and Albanian buzë (=lip) to the Thracian personal names Buzas, Buzo, Buzes. This word also exists in Bulgarian where it means 'cheek', and in Macedonian with the meaning of 'lip'). See Romanian substratum words.

Thracian language - Connections to Slavic and Baltic

In 1960 Vladimir Georgiev published his paper The Genesis of the Balkan peoples that proposed that Dacian and Thracian were on two different Indo-European branches. In 1975 Ivan Duridanov publishes his Ezikyt na trakite ('The Language of the Thracians' essay) in which a number of Thracian words (cited and conjectured) are given Balto-Slavic cognates and possible Balto-Slavic cognates.

Using Duridanov's Ezikyt na trakite essay as his basis, in the late 1980s and 1990s the linguist Harvey E. Mayer claimed that the Thracian language was a Southern Baltoidic language.

The linguist Mario Alinei recently (2003) published a paper that presents the claim that Thracian was much closer to Slavic than Baltic.

There is no agreement on whether Thracian was even very close to Balto-Slavic itself, let alone agreement on which of the two it was closest to. Many Thracologists place Thracian on its own Satem language branch, which may have shared a number of points in common with Balto-Slavic, Albanian, and Phrygian.

Though many cognates between Balto-Slavic and Thracian appear to exist, no conclusive evidence has arisen in support of a very close relation between Thracian and Balto-Slavic, and the longer Thracian inscriptions that are known (if indeed considered as Thracian) are not at all close to Baltic, Slavic, or any other known language [2], and in fact they have not been deciphered aside from perhaps a few words.

Thracian language - Thracian as a Centum language

Recently Sorin Olteanu, a Romanian linguist and thracologist, has proposed that the Thracian (as well as the Dacian) language was a Centum language in its earlier period, and developed Satem features over time [3]. One of the arguments for this idea is that there are many cognates between Thracian and Ancient Greek. There are also substratum words in the Romanian language that are cited as evidence of the genetic relationship of the Thracian language to ancient Greek and the ancient Macedonian language (the extinct language or Greek dialect of Macedon), and perhaps to other Centum language branches.

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