Thread by @Ancient_Scripts

LYCIAN LANGUAGE (1)

Lycian is an Indo-European language spoken between the middle and the end of the 1st millennium BC. in Lycia, a region that stretches along the southwestern coast of Asia Minor. The name of the region is of Greek origin.

#lycian

LYCIAN LANGUAGE (2)

Lycian and Luwian were related : the two dialects would have been formed from an original proto-Luwian and from a linguistic lineage different from that formed by the other dialects of Anatolia: Hittite, Palaic and Lydian.

#lycian

LYCIAN LANGUAGE (3)

We have 200 inscriptions in dextroverse script. Most of them have a funerary character but there are also some public inscriptions. There are also some bilingual inscriptions in Lycian and Greek which testify to a very strong link between these two cultures.

LYCIAN LANGUAGE (4)

Bilinguals include a dozen epitaphs, dedications, cultural texts and a tax decree. There is also a trilingual inscription written in Lycian, Greek and Aramaic, fundamental for the understanding of Lycian.

#lycian

LYCIAN LANGUAGE (5)

Lycian writing is an alphabetic writing composed of 23 signs for consonant sounds and 6 signs for vowel sounds. This writing is attested in the 5th-4th century BC. The Lycian language died out and was replaced by Ancient Greek, around 200 BC.

#lycian

LYCIAN LANGUAGE (6)

Lycian is written from left to right and its alphabet has a strong resemblance to the Greek alphabet from which it could derive: many signs seem to have been borrowed from Greek writing and then modified.

#lycian

LYCIAN LANGUAGE (7)

There are also signs of the Greek alphabet freely used to render sounds specific to the Lycian language. Nine of the #Lycian letters do not appear to derive from the Greek alphabet. The words are sometimes separated from each other by two vertical signs.