Findings Challenge Claims Ancient Greek Was Influenced by Anatolian Languages

Linear B tablet. Credit: Sharon Mollerus / CC BY 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons

A caller linguistic survey challenges long-held assumptions astir whether early Greek absorbed features from the languages of past Anatolia. The research, led by Michele Bianconi of St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, offers a caller and cautious reassessment of however overmuch aboriginal Greek whitethorn person been shaped done interaction with Anatolian languages betwixt the 2nd and archetypal millennia BCE.

Bianconi’s work, published successful the Journal of Greek Linguistics, is the archetypal systematic survey to measure claims that Greek was influenced by Anatolian languages specified arsenic Hittite and Luwian.

He approached the taxable with a case-by-case analysis, examining similarities successful dependable patterns, grammatical structures, and vocabulary. While immoderate erstwhile theories argued for important influence, the survey finds that overmuch of the linguistic overlap tin beryllium explained without assuming nonstop borrowing.

Bianconi warns against overestimating the interaction of Anatolian connected Greek, noting that respective similarities are either misleading oregon unsupported by beardown evidence. He argues that galore features erstwhile thought to amusement interaction are either communal developments recovered successful unrelated languages oregon simply coincidental.

Reassessing dependable and grammar connections

One illustration involves phonology. The lack of words opening with the /r/ dependable successful some Greek and Anatolian was often cited arsenic impervious of communal influence.

However, Bianconi shows this regularisation besides appears successful different unrelated languages successful the region, pointing alternatively to a wider areal diagnostic alternatively than circumstantial borrowing.

Another absorption of the survey is the Greek suffix -sk-, utilized successful verbs recovered successful Homer and Hesiod. Some scholars antecedently connected it to akin forms successful Hittite. Bianconi suggests that the resemblance is apt owed to literate benignant alternatively than heavy grammatical borrowing, particularly since widespread bilingualism successful that epoch is unlikely.

The Greek language has past origins and has had a profound power connected respective different European languages. Credit: Zde / CC BY-SA 4.0 / via Wikimedia Commons

Regarding vocabulary, the probe reveals constricted but noteworthy grounds of loanwords entering Greek from Anatolia. Words linked to trade, regular life, and ritual—such arsenic presumption for metal, containers, oregon societal roles—are the astir apt candidates.

These see items similar molybdos (lead) and tyrannos (ruler). According to Bianconi, these kinds of borrowings bespeak taste speech alternatively than wide connection contact.

Pamphylia offers a clearer representation of contact

A cardinal lawsuit survey successful the probe looks astatine Pamphylian Greek, a dialect spoken successful confederate Anatolia. Here, Bianconi finds clearer signs of contact, peculiarly successful the mode Pamphylian altered immoderate consonants and borrowed names from section Anatolian languages.

But adjacent successful this region, wherever Greek speakers lived alongside Anatolian communities for centuries, the halfway grammar remained stable. Most power was constricted to pronunciation and vocabulary.

The survey concludes that portion aboriginal Greek did travel into interaction with Anatolian languages, the effects were constricted and often overstated successful past scholarship.

Bianconi emphasizes the request to separate betwixt inherited Indo-European features and those resulting from outer contact. He besides cautions against assuming power wherever grounds is unclear oregon lacking.

Cultural proximity without heavy linguistic impact

Although the languages shared geography for centuries, Bianconi explains that they were not adjacent relatives wrong the Indo-European family.

This distant relationship, on with fragmentary humanities data, makes it hard to hint immoderate heavy oregon systematic borrowing. Still, the probe highlights a fewer areas wherever interaction near faint traces.

By re-evaluating decades of linguistic theories, the survey brings caller clarity to the question of however Greek developed successful a multilingual environment. It underlines that taste interaction successful the eastbound Mediterranean did not ever effect successful nonstop linguistic influence, adjacent erstwhile radical and languages lived broadside by side.

In doing so, Bianconi’s enactment reframes the statement connected whether Greek was influenced by Anatolian languages—not by denying each connections, but by showing that each lawsuit demands cautious and autarkic scrutiny.