View source for Trojan language

{{Short description|Ancient language of Troy}}
{{infobox language
| name             = Trojan
| region           = [[Troy]]
| era              = c. 1300 BCE
| familycolor      = unclassified
| family           = [[unclassified language|unclassified]]
| acceptance       = unattested
}}
The '''Trojan language''' was the language spoken in [[Troy]] during the [[Late Bronze Age]]. The identity of the language is unknown, and it is not certain that there was one single language used in the city at the time. A putative [[Trojan script]] was discovered by [[Heinrich Schliemann]] on several artifacts, although it is extremely unclear if this script is a single script, or indeed writing at all.

== Hypotheses ==
=== Luwian ===
One candidate language is [[Luwian language|Luwian]], an [[Anatolian language]] which was widely spoken in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. Arguments in favor of this hypothesis include seemingly Luwian-origin Trojan names such as "[[Kukkunni]]" and "[[Wilusiya]]", cultural connections between Troy and the nearby Luwian-speaking states of [[Arzawa]], and a [[Ancient Near Eastern seals and sealing practices|seal]] with [[Hieroglyphic Luwian]] writing found in the ruins of Troy VIIb1. However, these arguments are not regarded as conclusive. No Trojan name is indisputably Luwian, and some are most likely not, for instance the seemingly [[Mycenaean Greek|Greek]] name "[[Alaksandu]]". Additionally, the exact connection between Troy and Arzawa remains unclear, and in some Arzawan states such as [[Kingdom of Mira|Mira]], Luwian was spoken alongside both [[pre-Indo-European languages]] and later arrivals such as Greek. Finally, the Luwian seal is by no means sufficient to establish that it was spoken by the city's residents, particularly since it is an isolated example found on an easily transportable artifact.<ref name="bryce">{{cite book|last=Bryce|first=Trevor|title=The Trojans and their Neighbours|year=2005 |publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-34959-8|pages=117–122}}</ref><ref name="watkins">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Watkins |first=Calvert |author-link=Calvert Watkins |editor-last1=Mellink |editor-first1=Machteld|encyclopedia=Troy and the Trojan War: a Symposium Held at Bryn Mawr College |title=The language of the Trojans |url=https://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmc_books/1/ |year=1986 |publisher=Bryn Mawr Commentaries}}</ref><ref name="Yakubovich">{{cite thesis |last= Yakubovich |first=Ilya |year=2008 |title=Sociolinguistics of the Luvian language |type=PhD Thesis |chapter=3.6 |publisher=University of Chicago|chapter-url=https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/yakubovich_diss_2008.pdf}}</ref>

=== Lemnian-Etruscan ===
Proponents of an east to west migration hypothesis on the origin of the [[Etruscans]] like [[Robert S. P. Beekes]] place their original homeland adjacent to ancient Troy. [[Herodotus]] claims the Etruscans sailed from [[Lydia]] (the people of which, Beekes contends, lived north of its classical era location) to Italy. Beekes asserts that the presence of a language related to [[Etruscan language|Etruscan]] on the island of [[Lemnos]] (roughly 65 km from [[Athos peninsula]] in northeastern Greece and 70 km from Troas in Turkey), [[Lemnian language|Lemnian]], represents a remnant from those remaining after the migration from the Proto-Tyrsenian [[urheimat]] in northwest Asia Minor. More specific evidence related to the Etruscan relation to Troy is the name Hittite record of the city of ''Truwiša'' which is supposedly the etymology of both and the story of [[Aeneas]] is connected with the arrival of the Etruscans to Italy.<ref>Beekes, Robert S. P.[http://www.knaw.nl/Content/Internet_KNAW/publicaties/pdf/20021051.pdf "The Origin of the Etruscans"]{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120117190941/http://www.knaw.nl/Content/Internet_KNAW/publicaties/pdf/20021051.pdf|date=2012-01-17}}. In: ''Biblioteca Orientalis'' '''59''' (2002), 206–242.</ref> For historical, archaeological, genetic, and linguistic reasons, a relationship between Etruscan and the Indo-European Anatolian languages (Lydian or Luwian) has not been accepted, just as the Lydian origin story reported by Herodotus is no longer considered reliable as demonstrated by [[Dominique Briquel]],<ref name=Hornblower2014>{{cite book |editor1-last=Hornblower |editor1-first=Simon |editor2-last=Spawforth |editor2-first=Antony |editor3-last= Eidinow |editor3-first=Esther |title=The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=0awiBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA292|series=Oxford Companions |language=en |edition=2 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2014 |pages=291–292 |isbn=9780191016752 |quote=Briquel's convincing demonstration that the famous story of an exodus, led by Tyrrhenus from Lydia to Italy, was a deliberate political fabrication created in the Hellenized milieu of the court at Sardis in the early 6th cent. BCE. }}</ref> and a hypothetical Trojan origin of the Etruscans does not enjoy the consensus of scholars specialising in Etruscan civilisation, even if it is cyclically re-proposed by Indo-European linguists and Orientalists without providing evidence.<ref name=Barker>{{cite book |last1=Barker |first1=Graeme |author-link1= Graeme Barker|last2=Rasmussen |first2=Tom |author-link2=Tom Rasmussen |display-authors= |author-mask1= |author-mask2= |author-mask3= |author-mask4= |author-mask5= |name-list-style= |translator-last1= |translator-first1= |translator-link1= |translator-last2= |translator-first2= |translator-link2= |display-translators= |translator-mask1= |translator-mask2= |year=2000 |orig-year= |chapter= |script-chapter= |trans-chapter= |chapter-url= |chapter-format= |display-editors= |title=The Etruscans |script-title= |trans-title= |url= |url-status= |url-access= |format= |type= |series= The Peoples of Europe|language=English |volume= |edition= |location=Oxford |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |page=44 |no-pp= |arxiv= |bibcode= |doi= |isbn= 978-0-631-22038-1 }}</ref><ref name=Turfa2017>{{cite book |last1=Turfa|first1= Jean MacIntosh |author-link1=Jean MacIntosh Turfa|year= 2017|chapter= The Etruscans|editor1-last= Farney|editor1-first=Gary D. |editor2-last=Bradley |editor2-first=Gary |title=The Peoples of Ancient Italy |location=Berlin |publisher= De Gruyter|pages=637–672 |doi=10.1515/9781614513001 |isbn=978-1-61451-520-3 }}</ref><ref name=DeGrummond2014>{{cite book |last1= De Grummond |first1=Nancy T.|author-link1= Nancy Thomson de Grummond|year=2014 |chapter=Ethnicity and the Etruscans|editor1-last=McInerney |editor1-first=Jeremy |title=A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean |location=Chichester, UK |publisher= John Wiley & Sons, Inc |pages=405–422 |doi=10.1002/9781118834312 |isbn=9781444337341 }}</ref><ref name=Shipley2017>{{cite book |last1=Shipley |first1=Lucy |year= 2017|chapter=Where is home? |title= The Etruscans: Lost Civilizations|language=en |location=London |publisher=Reaktion Books |pages=28–46 |isbn=9781780238623 }}</ref> Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which shows no resemblance to ''Truwiša'', and no archaeological or linguistic evidence have been found in Anatolia that might prove the eastern origin of the Etruscans, just as, after more than 90 years of archaeological excavations at Lemnos, nothing has been found in that Greek island that would support a migration from [[Lemnos]] to [[Etruria]].<ref name="Ficuciello2013">{{cite book|last1=Ficuciello |first1=Lucia |url= |title=Lemnos. Cultura, storia, archeologia, topografia di un'isola del nord-Egeo |trans-title=Lemnos. Culture, history, archeology, topography of a north Aegean island |publisher=Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene |year=2013 |isbn=978-960-9559-03-4 |series=Monografie della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente 20, 1/1 |volume= |location=Athens |pages=68–116 |language=Italian}}</ref> Linguist [[Rex E. Wallace]] summarizes all the problems of the hypothesis of an east to west migration hypothesis on the origin of the [[Etruscans]]:<ref name=Wallace2010>{{cite book |last1=Wallace |first1= Rex E.|author-link1=Rex E. Wallace |display-authors= |author-mask1= |author-mask2= |author-mask3= |author-mask4= |author-mask5= |name-list-style= |translator-last1= |translator-first1= |translator-link1= |translator-last2= |translator-first2= |translator-link2= |display-translators= |translator-mask1= |translator-mask2= |year=2010 |orig-year= |chapter=Italy, Languages of |script-chapter= |trans-chapter= |chapter-url= |chapter-format= |editor1-last=Gagarin |editor1-first=Michael |display-editors= |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome |script-title= |trans-title= |url= |url-status= |url-access= |format= |type= |series= |language=English |volume= |edition= |location=Oxford, UK |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=97–102 |no-pp= |arxiv= |bibcode= |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195170726.001.0001 |isbn=9780195170726|quote=Etruscan origins lie in the distant past. Despite the claim by Herodotus, who wrote that Etruscans migrated to Italy from Lydia in the eastern Mediterranean, there is no material or linguistic evidence to support this. Etruscan material culture developed in an unbroken chain from Bronze Age antecedents. As for linguistic relationships, Lydian is an Indo-European language. Lemnian, which is attested by a few inscriptions discovered near Kaminia on the island of Lemnos, was a dialect of Etruscan introduced to the island by commercial adventurers. Linguistic similarities connecting Etruscan with Raetic, a language spoken in the sub-Alpine regions of northeastern Italy, further militate against the idea of eastern origins. |mode= }}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=Etruscan origins lie in the distant past. Despite the claim by Herodotus, who wrote that Etruscans migrated to Italy from Lydia in the eastern Mediterranean, there is no material or linguistic evidence to support this. Etruscan material culture developed in an unbroken chain from Bronze Age antecedents. As for linguistic relationships, Lydian is an Indo-European language. Lemnian, which is attested by a few inscriptions discovered near Kamania on the island of Lemnos, was a dialect of Etruscan introduced to the island by commercial adventurers. Linguistic similarities connecting Etruscan with Raetic, a language spoken in the sub-Alpine regions of northeastern Italy, further militate against the idea of eastern origins.}}

Moreover, a 2021 archeogenetic analysis of Etruscan individuals concluded that the Etruscans were autochthonous and genetically similar to the Early Iron Age [[Latins]], and that the [[Etruscan language]], and therefore the other languages of the [[Tyrsenian languages|Tyrrhenian family]], may be a surviving language of the ones that were widespread in Europe from at least the Neolithic period before the arrival of the Indo-European languages,<ref name=Posth2021>{{cite journal |last1=Posth |first1=Cosimo |last2=Zaro |first2=Valentina |last3=Spyrou |first3=Maria A. |date=24 September 2021 |title=The origin and legacy of the Etruscans through a 2000-year archeogenomic time transect |journal=[[Science Advances]] |language=English |location=Washington DC |publisher=American Association for the Advancement of Science |volume=7 |issue=39 |pages=eabi7673 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.abi7673 |pmc=8462907 |pmid=34559560|bibcode=2021SciA....7.7673P }}</ref> as already argued by German geneticist [[Johannes Krause]] who concluded that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as [[Basque language|Basque]], [[Paleo-Sardinian]] and [[Minoan language|Minoan]]) "developed on the continent in the course of the [[Neolithic Europe|Neolithic Revolution]]".<ref name=Krause2020>{{cite book |last1=Krause |first1=Johannes |author-link1=Johannes Krause |last2=Trappe |first2=Thomas |translator-last1=Waight |translator-first1=Caroline |year=2021 |orig-year=2019 |title=A Short History of Humanity: A New History of Old Europe |trans-title=Die Reise unserer Gene: Eine Geschichte über uns und unsere Vorfahren |language=English |edition=I |location=New York |publisher=Random House |page=217 |isbn=9780593229422 |quote=It's likely that Basque, Paleo-Sardinian, Minoan, and Etruscan developed on the continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution. Sadly, the true diversity of the languages that once existed in Europe will never be known.}}</ref> The lack of recent Anatolian-related admixture and Iranian-related ancestry among the Etruscans, who genetically joined firmly to the European cluster, might also suggest that the presence of a handful of inscriptions found at Lemnos, in a language related to Etruscan and Raetic, "could represent population movements departing from the Italian peninsula".<ref name=Posth2021/>

=== Greek ===
Another proposed language is [[Greek language|Greek]].<ref name=Şaraplı>{{Cite journal |last=Şaraplı |first=Onur |date=2019 |title=The Late Bronze Age Anatolia: The Origins of Trojans In the Context of Language and Culture |journal=Karadeniz Uluslararası Bilimsel Dergi |issue=44 |pages=231, 238 |doi=10.17498/kdeniz.567117 |s2cid=240494784 |issn=1308-6200|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Mellaart |first=James |date=1958 |title=The End of the Early Bronze Age in Anatolia and the Aegean |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/500459 |journal=American Journal of Archaeology |language=en |volume=62 |issue=1 |pages=9–33 |doi=10.2307/500459 |jstor=500459 |s2cid=193089026 |issn=0002-9114|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Archaeologist [[James Mellaart]] in the ''[[American Journal of Archaeology]]'' summarized some of the arguments in favor of this hypothesis:<ref name=":0" />
{{Blockquote|text=When one remembers that Luwian names in -ss and -nd- are rare in the Northwestern corner of Anatolia, Anatolian hieroglyphs absent, and that archaeology suggests that a branch of the Greeks remained behind in this region, where [[Ahhiyawa]] should be located, this may just add one more argument to the hypothesis that the "Trojans" called themselves "[[Achaeans (tribe)|Akhaiwoi]]" and spoke some form of Greek.}}

However the site of Troy is devoid of Greek writings from the [[Mycenaean Greece|relevant historical period]], and the current evidence points away from a Greek origin.<ref name=Şaraplı/> Several artifacts marked with [[Trojan script|carved symbols]] were discovered by [[Heinrich Schliemann]] during his 1873 excavations, and some scholars have identified them as related to various Aegean writing systems including [[Linear A]].<ref>{{cite book |author1=Edwin L. Brown |editor1-last=Schmeling |editor1-first=Gareth |editor2-last=Mikalson |editor2-first=Jon A. |title=Qui Miscuit Utile Dulci: Festschrift Essays for Paul Lachlan MacKendrick |date=1998 |publisher=Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers |location=Wauconda, IL |isbn=978-0-86516-406-2 |pages=52–53 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PCHtWIU1mx4C&pg=PA51 |access-date=10 January 2025 |language=en |chapter=Linear A on Trojan Spindlewhorls, Luvian-Based ϜΑΝΑΞ at Cnossus}}</ref>  However there is no consensus if these symbols represent writing at all, let alone a recognized writing system.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Massimo Perna |editor1-last=Nakassis |editor1-first=Dimitri |editor2-last=Gulizio |editor2-first=Joann |editor3-last=James |editor3-first=Sarah A. |title=KE-RA-ME-JA: Studies Presented to Cynthia W. Shelmerdine |date=31 December 2014 |publisher=INSTAP Academic Press |location=Philadelphia, PA |isbn=978-1-62303-357-6 |pages=253, 256 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZiOzEAAAQBAJ |access-date=10 January 2025 |language=en |chapter=The Birth of Administration and Writing in Minoan Crete: Some Thoughts on Hieroglyphics and Linear A}}</ref>

== In ancient Greek epics ==
In [[Ancient Greek literature]] such as the ''[[Iliad]]'', Trojan characters are portrayed as having a common language with the [[Achaeans (Homer)|Achaeans]]. However, scholars unanimously interpret this as a poetic convention, and not as evidence that the Trojans were Greek speakers. For instance, [[Calvert Watkins]] points out that the [[Spanish literature|Spanish]] epic poem ''[[Cantar de mio Cid]]'' portrays its [[Arab]] characters as [[Spanish language|Spanish]] speakers and that the ''[[Song of Roland]]'' similarly portrays Arabs as speaking [[French language|French]].<ref name = "bryce"/><ref name="watkins" /><ref name = "Yakubovich"/> Some scholars have suggested that Greek-origin names for Trojan characters in the ''Iliad'' motivate a more serious argument for the Trojans having been Greek speakers. Putative etymologies for legendary names have also been used to argue that the Trojans spoke other languages such as [[Thracian language|Thracian]] or [[Lydian language|Lydian]]. These arguments have been countered on the basis that these languages would have been familiar to classical-era bards and could therefore be later inventions.<ref name = "bryce"/><ref name="watkins" /><ref name = "Yakubovich"/>

== See also ==
{{columnslist|colwidth=30em|
* [[Ahhiyawa]]
* [[Comparative method]]
* [[Dardanians (Trojan)|Dardanians]]
* [[Hittite language]]
* [[Indo-European languages]]
* [[Linear B]]
* [[Prehistory of Anatolia]]
* [[Trojan script]]
}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{Greek language}}
{{Anatolian languages}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trojan Language}}
[[Category:Extinct languages of Asia]]
[[Category:Ancient languages]]
[[Category:Trojan War]]
[[Category:Troy]]
[[Category:Unattested languages of Asia]]