PRE-ROMAN LANGUAGES AND WRITING SYSTEMS OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL


    The languages of the pre-roman Iberian peninsula can be classified in two groups according to their external cultural relations: 1) the languages of the historically documented colonisations: Phoenician, Punic and Greek; and 2) the "native" languages.

    In turn, these native languages can be classified according to their genetical family relations in three groups: 1) Indo-European: the Celtiberian, a Celtic language; and the Lusitanian, a scarcely attested language regarded as Celtic by some investigators, but that preserves the /p/ from Proto-Indo-European and hence probably not Celtic; 2) Iberian, a clearly distinguishable and easily identificable language (or languages?) but very poorly known, probably related to Basque and ancient Aquitanian; 3) Unclassified languages: among these the only attested enough for an identification is the usually called Tartessian (presuming an unproved relation with the Tartessian culture, though it isn't attested in Tartessian sites) but more correctly called Sudlusitanian. In all likelihood Tartessian is nor an Iberian language neither an Indo-European one. Although it's usually considered the hypothesis of its adscription to the Celtic or to the Anatolian families I have a forthcoming paper with forceful arguments against.

    Of course, ancient inscriptions are the safest way to know the ancient languages but not all the ancient languages were written. Fortunately there are other data available, though of very limited scope. The main of these is toponymy. Sometimes the toponymical data match well with the "inscriptional" data (so the '-briga' city names with Celtiberian, and the 'iltir'" and "iltur" city names with Iberian), but the zone of the 'ippo' / 'oba' city names, whereas basically coincident with the Tartessian culture zone, is of unclear relation with the language of the Sudlusitanian inscriptions.

    In turn, the writing systems can be classified in two groups: natives and not natives. The native ones are the Iberian systems of which there were three basic kinds clearly derived from the same ancestor system (probably Sudlusitanian or a very similar writing) which was created from the Phoenician writing ca. 800 B.C. The native systems are Sudlusitanian, Meridional Iberian and Levantine (eastern) Iberian. The "foreign" are Phoenician/Punic, Greek and Latin. Greek writing was used also for Iberian language and Latin for Lusitanian, sometimes for Celtiberian, and exceptionally for Iberian.

    Levantine Iberian: inscriptions in semisyllabic Iberian writing and Iberian language; almost always written from left to right. Attested from the IV century B.C. to the I A.C. Before the Second Punic War it is limited to the coastal zone from South France (from the river Orb: Béziers/ Narbonne) to the north of the province of Valencia, on the same latitude as Sagunto. Afterwards its use expands towards the south as far as Murcia and even Granada (though this is scarcely attested, the coin mint of Granada must be written in Levantine script) and towards inland specially through the Ebro Valley with decreasing attestations as far as Aragón and even Navarra.

    Meridional Iberian: inscriptions in semysyllabic Iberian writing (but more akin to the Sudlusitanian than to the Levantine one) and Iberian language, usually written from right to left, but the left to right direction is also well attested. A lot less inscriptions of this kind are known than of Levantine ones. Its basic use zone forms a triangle from Almería to Córdoba and to South Valencia with isolated founds in Castellón (Orleyl), South France (Lattes) and Cáceres (Montfragüe).

    Greek-Iberian : a slightly adaptated system from the Jonian Greek alphabet used for the Iberian language. Written from left to right. The few known inscriptions come from the provinces of Alicante and Murcia (the alleged Greek-Iberian lead plaque inscription from Sagunto is dubious as Greek-Iberian and maybe a fake). According to the Greek palaeography it must have been created before the 400 B.C., it´s well attested in the IV century and seems to have disappeared sometime in the III B.C.

    Sudlusitanian (also known as Tartessian): it is the script found on over 70 inscriptions (almost all steles). The majority of them come from South Portugal (Algarve and Baixo-Alemtejo) but a few also from S.W. Spain (Extremadura, West Andalucía). They use to repeat a series of a few words [ (te-ero) bare nar'ken-], which probably have a funeral meaning. Its chronology is difficult to assess, but it seems to have been in use during the VI and V centuries b.C., maybe also before, but probably disappearing (at least its use on steles) short after.

    Celtiberian: use of slightly modified variants of Levantine Iberian writing in order to write Celtiberian language (a Celtic Indo-European one). It's used since the II century b.C. mainly in the high basins of the rivers Ebro and Tajo (from Palencia to Zaragoza-Teruel).

    Lusitanian: Western Indo-European language attested in four inscriptions from the middle Tajo basin in Latin writing. Some researchers claim it is Celtic, in spite of the fact that it preserves Proto-Indoeuropean /p/.

    Lybian-Phoenician ("libio-fenice"): traditional and equivocal name given to the Neo-Punic writing found on a few coins whose mint cities were in the low Guadalquivir basin. II-I centuries b.C.

    pottery inscriptions of Orientalising S.W. Spain Culture: an heterogeneous group of few and very short inscription very difficult to classify. Some of they are probably Palaeo-Hispanic (Sudlusitanian, "Tartessian" or Meridional kind), but many may be simply Phoenician. VIII-V centuries b.C.