Pisidian language
| Pisidian | |
|---|---|
| Region | Pisidia, ancient southwestern Anatolia |
| Extinct | after the second century CE |
Indo-European
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xps |
xps | |
| Glottolog | pisi1234 |
The Pisidian language is a member of the extinct Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family spoken in Pisidia, a region of ancient Asia Minor. Known from some fifty short inscriptions from the first to second centuries CE, it appears to be closely related to Lycian, Milyan, and Sidetic.
Sources[]
Pisidian is known from about fifty funeral inscriptions, most of them from Sofular (classical Tymbrias). The first were discovered in 1890; five years later sixteen of them were published and analyzed by Scottish archaeologist William Mitchell Ramsay.[1] The texts are basically of a genealogical character (strings of names) and are usually accompanied by a relief picturing the deceased. Recently inscriptions have also been found at Selge, Kesme (near Yeşilbağ), and Deḡirmenözü.[2] Four inscriptions from the Kesme region seem to offer regular text, not merely names. By far the longest of them consists of thirteen lines.[3]
Pisidian script[]
Pisidian is written left to right in a script that closely resembles the Greek alphabet. A few letters are missing (phi, chi, psi, and possibly theta), and two others were added (characters F and И, both denoting a /w/- or /v/-sound). In recently discovered inscriptions two new signs