Thracian language

Short description: Extinct Indo-European language

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|

Thracian

Region| Bulgaria, European Turkey, parts of Southern Serbia, parts of the region of Macedonia (including Paeonia), regions in Northern Greece, parts of Romania, parts of Bithynia in Anatolia. Probably also spoken in parts of Dardania.
Extinct| 6th century AD[1]

Language family

Indo-European

* Daco-Thracian (?)
* Thracian

Writing system

| Greek
Language codes
ISO 639-3| `txh`

Linguist List

| `txh`
Glottolog| `thra1250`[2]

Thracian (/ˈθreɪʃən/ THRAY-shən) is an extinct and poorly attested language, spoken in ancient times in Southeast Europe by the Thracians. The linguistic affinities of the Thracian language are poorly understood, but it is generally agreed that it was an Indo-European language.[3]

The point at which Thracian became extinct is a matter of dispute. However, it is generally accepted that Thracian was still in use in the 6th century AD: Antoninus of Piacenza wrote in 570 that there was a monastery in the Sinai, at which the monks spoke Greek, Latin, Syriac, Egyptian, and Bessian – a Thracian dialect.[4][5][6][7]

A classification put forward by Harvey Mayer, suggests that Thracian (and Dacian) belonged to the Baltic branch of Indo-European, or at least is closer to Baltic than any other Indo-European branch.[8] However, this theory has not achieved the status of a general consensus among linguists. These are among many competing hypotheses regarding the classification and fate of Thracian.[9]

## Contents

* 1 Remnants of the Thracian language
* 2 Inscriptions
* 2.1 Ezerovo inscription
* 2.2 Kyolmen inscription
* 2.3 Duvanlii inscription
* 3 Geographic distribution
* 3.1 Toponymy
* 4 Classification
* 5 Decline of the Thracians and their language
* 6 See also
* 7 Footnotes
* 8 References
* 9 General references
* 10 Further reading
* 10.1 Inscriptions
* 10.2 Onomastics
* 10.3 Lexicon
* 10.4 Toponymy and hydronymy
* 11 External links

## Remnants of the Thracian language

Limits of the (southern) Thracian linguistic territory according to Ivan Duridanov, 1985

Little is known for certain about the Thracian language, since no text has been satisfactorily deciphered. Some of the longer inscriptions may be Thracian in origin but they may simply reflect jumbles of names or magical formulas.[10]

Enough Thracian lexical items have survived to show that Thracian was a member of the Indo-European language family.

Besides the aforementioned inscriptions, Thracian may be attested through personal names, toponyms, hydronyms, phytonyms, divine names, etc. and by a small number of words cited in Ancient Greek texts as being specifically Thracian.[11] There are 23 words mentioned by ancient sources considered explicitly of Thracian origin and known meaning.[12][13] Of the words that are preserved in ancient glossaries, in particular by Hesychius, only three dozen can be considered "Thracian". However, Indo-European scholars have pointed out that "even the notion that what the ancients called "Thracian" was a single entity is unproven."[14] The table below lists potential cognates from Indo-European languages, but most of them have not found general acceptance within Indo-European scholarship. Not all lexical items in Thracian are assumed to be from the Proto-Indo-European language, some non-IE lexical items in Thracian are to be expected.

Word | Meaning | Attested by | Cognates | Notes

|
|
|
|

ἄσα (asa)  | colt's foot (Bessi)  | Dioscorides  | Lithuanian dialectal asỹs 'horse-tail, Equisetum', Latvian aši, ašas 'horse-tail, sedge, rush'  | The etymology of both Baltic words is unclear and extra-Baltic cognates have yet to be established.[15]
βόλινθος (bólinthos)  | aurochs, European bison  | Aristotle | Proto-Slavic *volъ ("ox"). Per Beekes, Pre-Greek.[16] | See also Greek βοῦς 'cow', but Latv. govs ' id ' both < PIE *gwṓws. Proto-Slavic *vòlъ has no extra-Slavic cognates.
βρία (bría)  | unfortified village  | Hesychius of Alexandria, compare the toponyms Πολτυμβρία, Σηλυ(μ)μβρία, and Βρέα in Thrace.  | Compared to Greek ῥίον (ríon; "peak, foothills") and Tocharian A ri, B riye ("town") as if < *urih₁-. Alternatively, compare Proto-Celtic *brix- ("hill").  | Greek ῥίον has no clear etymology.[17] The Tocharian lemmata may be related.[18]
βρίζα (bríza)  | rye  | Galen | Perhaps of Eastern origin, compare Greek ὄρυζα, Sanskrit vrīhí- ("rice").  | The 'rice' words in Greek and Sanskrit are Wanderwörter. The Greek word may be borrowed from an Eastern Iranian language.[19]
βρυνχός (brynkhós)  | kithara[20] |  | Compared with Slavic *bręčati "to ring".  | The word may be onomatopoetic in nature. Furthermore, there is a grave issue with the inscription, as Gk /ŋ/ is written with a gamma before a velar, i.e., this word should be written βρυγχός, which it is not.
βρῦτος (brŷtos)  | beer of barley  | many  | Slavic "vriti" (to boil), Germanic *bruþa- ("broth"), Old Irish bruth ("glow"), Latin dē-frŭtum ("must boiled down").[20][lower-alpha 1]
dinupula, si/nupyla  | wild melon  | Pseudo-Apuleius  | Lithuanian šùnobuolas, lit. ("dog's apple"), or with Slavic *dynja ("melon"). Per Vladimir Georgiev, derived from *kun-ābōlo- or *kun-ābulo- 'hound's apple'.[20] | Proto-Slavic *dyña (from earlier *kъdyña is most likely borrowed from Gk. κῠδώνῐον via Lat. cydōnia.[22]
γέντον (génton)  | meat  | Herodian, Suda, Hesychius  | Possibly descended from IE *gʷʰn̥tó- 'strike, kill', cf. Sanskrit hatá- 'hit, killed'  | The adjective *gʷʰn̥tós in the zero-grade has an *-s in the nom.sg., whereas in Thracian the word ends in a nasal, which is a serious issue that requires morphological remodelling in Thracian for it to be posited as the starting point for Thracian γέντον. Furthermore, the e-grade vowel of the Thracian potential avatar remains to be explained as well if from an original PIE *gʷʰn̥tós.
καλαμίνδαρ (kalamíndar)  | plane-tree (Edoni)  | Hesychius  |
κη̃μος (kêmos)  | a kind of fruit with follicle  | Photios I of Constantinople's Lexicon |
κτίσται (ktístai)  | Ctistae | Strabo  |
midne (in a Latin inscription, thus not written with Gk alphabet)  | village  | inscription from Rome  | Latvian mītne 'a place of stay', Avestan maēϑana- 'dwelling'[3]
Πολτυμ(βρία) (poltym-bría)  | board fence, a board tower  |  | Old English speld 'wood, log'  | The OE lemma is poorly understood and extra-Germanic cognates are few and far between. OE speld may have descended from a PIE root *(s)pley- which is poorly attested and does not seem to be a formal match to the Thracian term.
ῥομφαία (rhomphaía)  | broadsword  |  | Compared with Latin rumpō ("to rupture"),[20] Bulgarian roféja, rufja (руфя), i.e. "thunderbolt"[23] and the Albanian rrufeja as derivatives of that word.[24][25] Slavic: Russian разрубать, Polish rąbać ("to hack", "to chop", "to slash"), Polish rębajło ("eager swordsman"), Serbo-Croatian rmpalija ("bruiser")  | The Slavic terms here must come from a medial *-bh-, whereas Lat. rumpō 'I break' must descend from a medial *-p-[26] and therefore those words aren't even cognate with each other, let alone with the Thracian term.
σκάλμη (skálmē)  | knife, sword  | Sophocles, Julius Pollux, Marcus Aurelius, Hesychius, Photios' Lexicon | Albanian shkallmë ("sword"), Old Norse skolmr 'cleft'  | The Albanian term is likely a secondary innovation. ON skolmr is unclear and has no extra-Germanic cognates;[27] it is unlikely to be related to the Thracian term.
σκάρκη (skárkē)  | a silver coin  | Hesychius, Photios' Lexicon |
σπίνος (spínos)  | 'a kind of stone, which blazes when water touches it' (i.e. 'lime')  | Aristotle  | PIE *k̑witn̥os 'white, whitish', Greek τίτανος (Attic) and κίττανος (Doric) 'gypsum, chalk, lime'.
Although from the same PIE root, Albanian shpâ(ni) 'lime, tartar' and Greek σπίνος 'lime' derive from a secondary origin as they were probably borrowed from Thracian due to phonetic reasons[28] |
τορέλλη (toréllē)  | a refrain of lament mourn song  | Hesychius  |
ζαλμός (zalmós)  | animal hide  | Porphyry of Tyre  | Per Georgiev, derived from *kolmo-s. Related to Gothic hilms, German Helm and Old Iranian sárman 'protection'.[20] | Thracian initial ζ- can either be related to PIE *ḱ (as in these 'cognates' and several below) or to *ǵh-/*gh\- as in the following entry, but not both. There does not exist an OIr word sárman,[29] but a word śárman does exist in Sanskrit. However, Sanskrit ś- must go back to a PIE *ḱ-, not *k- as Georgiev states.
ζειρά (zeira)  | long robe worn by Arabs and Thracians  | Herodotus, Xenophon, Hesychius  | Per Georgiev, related to Greek χείρ (kheir) and Phrygian ζειρ (zeir) 'hand'.[20] | See above. The meaning of Phrygian ζειρα(ι) is unknown, not 'hand' as Georgiev believes.[30]
ζελᾶ (zelâ), also ζῆλα (zêla), ζηλᾱς (zelās)  | wine  | many  | Compared with Greek χάλις (khális; "unblended wine") and κάλιθος (kálithos; "wine")  | See above.
ζετραία (zetraía)  | pot  | Julius Pollux  | Per Georgiev, related to Greek χύτρα (khútra) 'pot'.[20] | See above.
zibythides  | the noble, most holy one  | Hesychius  | Lith. žibùtė ("shining")

## Inscriptions

The following are the longest inscriptions preserved. The remaining ones are mostly single words or names on vessels and other artifacts. No translation has been accepted by the larger Indo-European community of scholars.[31]

### Ezerovo inscription

The Ring of Ezerovo, found in 1912

Only four Thracian inscriptions of any length have been found. The first is a gold ring found in 1912 in the village of Ezerovo (Plovdiv Province of Bulgaria); the ring was dated to the 5th century BC.[32] The ring features an inscription in a Greek script consisting of 8 lines, the eighth of which is located on the rim of the rotating disk; it reads without any spaces between: ΡΟΛΙΣΤΕΝΕΑΣΝ / ΕΡΕΝΕΑΤΙΛ / ΤΕΑΝΗΣΚΟΑ / ΡΑΖΕΑΔΟΜ / ΕΑΝΤΙΛΕΖΥ / ΠΤΑΜΙΗΕ / ΡΑΖ // ΗΛΤΑ

Dimitar Dechev (Germanised as D. Detschew) separates the words and proposes a translation as follows:[33][34]

Script error: No such module "Interlinear".

### Kyolmen inscription

A second inscription, hitherto undeciphered, was found in 1965 near the village of Kyolmen (bg), Varbitsa Municipality, dating to the sixth century BC. Written in a Greek alphabet variant, it is possibly a tomb stele inscription similar to the Phrygian ones; Peter A. Dimitrov's transcription thereof is:[35]

ΙΛΑΣΝΛΕΤΕΔΝΛΕΔΝΕΝΙΔΑΚΑΤΡΟΣΟ[36]
ΕΒΑ·ΡΟΖΕΣΑΣΝΗΝΕΤΕΣΑΙΓΕΚΟΑ[37]
ΝΒΛΑΒΑΗΓΝ[36]

i.e.

ilasnletednlednenidakatroso
eba·rozesasnēnetesaigekoa
nblabaēgn

### Duvanlii inscription

A third inscription is again on a ring, found in Duvanlii (bg), Kaloyanovo Municipality, next to the left hand of a skeleton. It dates to the 5th century BC. The ring has the image of a horseman[38] with the inscription surrounding the image.[39] It is only partly legible (16 out of the initial 21):

Script error: No such module "Interlinear".

The word mezenai is interpreted to mean 'Horseman', and a cognate to Illyrian Menzanas (as in "Juppiter/Jove Menzanas" 'Juppiter of the foals' or 'Juppiter on a horse');[40][41][42] Albanian mëz 'foal'; Romanian mînz 'colt, foal';[43][44] Latin mannus 'small horse, pony';[45][46] Gaulish manduos 'pony' (as in tribe name Viromandui[47] 'men who own ponies').[48][49][lower-alpha 2]

## Geographic distribution

The Thracian language or languages were spoken in what is now Bulgaria,[51][52] Romania, North Macedonia, Northern Greece, European Turkey and in parts of Bithynia (North-Western Asiatic Turkey).

### Toponymy

Onomastic range of some towns with the -dava ending

Many names of cities, towns, villages, and fortresses in and around ancient Thrace and Dacia were composed of an initial lexical element affixed to -dava, -daua, -deva, -deba, -daba, or -dova, which meant "city" or "town". Endings on more southern regions are exclusively -bria ("town, city"), -disza, -diza, -dizos ("fortress, walled settlement"), -para, -paron, -pera, -phara ("town, village"). Strabo translated -bria as polis, but that may not be accurate.[53] Thracian -disza, -diza, and -dizos are derived from Proto-Indo-European *dheigh-, "to knead clay", hence to "make bricks", "build walls", "wall", "walls", and so on. These Thracian lexical items show a satemization of PIE *gh-. Cognates include Ancient Greek teichos ("wall, fort, fortified town", as in the town of Didymoteicho) and Avestan da?za ("wall").[citation needed]

It is suggested[by whom?] that the -dava endings are from the Dacian language, while the rest from the Thracian language. However -dava towns can be found as south as Sandanski and Plovdiv. Some -dava toponyms contain the same linguistic features as -diza toponyms, e.g. Pirodiza and Pirodava. The first written mention of the name "Dacians" is in Roman sources. Strabo specified that the Daci are the Getae, identified as a Thracian tribe. The Dacians, Getae and their kings were always considered as Thracians by the ancients (Dio Cassius, Trogus Pompeius, Appian, Strabo, Herodotus and Pliny the Elder) and were said to speak the same language. The Dacian language is considered a variety of the Thracian language.[54] Such lexical differentiation -dava vs. -para, would be hardly enough evidence to separate Dacian from Thracian, thus they are classified as dialects.[55] It is also possible that -dava and -bria mean two different things in the same language, rather than meaning the same thing in two different languages. Thus -bria could have been used for urbanized settlements, similar in scale and design to those of the "civilised" peoples like Greeks and Romans, whereas -dava could mean a settlement which is rural, being situated in the steppe-like part of the Thracian lands.[citation needed]

## Classification

Part of a series on

Indo-European topics

Languages

* * *

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* * *

Historical

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* * *

Reconstructed

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* * *

Hypothetical

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* * *

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Origins

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* * *

Mainstream

* Kurgan hypothesis
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* * *

Alternative and fringe

* Anatolian hypothesis
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Archaeology

Chalcolithic (Copper Age)

Pontic Steppe

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East Asia

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Eastern Europe

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Northern Europe

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* * *

Bronze Age

Pontic Steppe

* Chariot
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Northern/Eastern Steppe

* Abashevo culture
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Europe

* Globular Amphora
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* Terramare
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South Asia

* BMAC
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* * *

Iron Age

Steppe

* Chernoles

Europe

* Thraco-Cimmerian
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Caucasus

* Colchian

India

* Painted Grey Ware
* Northern Black Polished Ware

Peoples and societies

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Europe

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Indo-European studies

Scholars

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Institutes

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* v
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Due to a paucity of evidence required to establish a linguistic connection, the Thracian language, in modern linguistic textbooks, is usually treated either as its own branch of Indo-European,[3] or is grouped with Dacian, together forming a Daco-Thracian branch of IE. Older textbooks often grouped it also with Illyrian or Phrygian. The idea that Thracian was close to Phrygian is no longer popular and has mostly been discarded.[56]

There is a fringe idea[57][58] that Thraco-Dacian forms a branch of Indo-European along with Baltic,[59] but a Balto-Slavic linguistic unity is so overwhelmingly accepted by the Indo-European linguistic community that this hypothesis does not pass muster.

## Decline of the Thracians and their language

According to the 19th-century Greek educator Vlasios Skordelis, when Thracians were subjugated by Alexander the Great they finally assimilated to Greek culture and became as Greek as Spartans and Athenians, although he considered the Thracian language as a form of Greek.[60] According to Crampton (1997) most Thracians were eventually Hellenized or Romanized, with the last remnants surviving in remote areas until the 5th century.[61] According to Marinov (2015) the Thracians were likely completely Romanized and Hellenized after the last contemporary references to them of the 6th century.[62]

Another author believes that the interior of Thrace was never Romanized or Hellenized (Trever, 1939).[63] This was followed also by Slavonization. According to Weithmann (1978) when the Slavs migrated, they encountered only a very superficially Romanized Thracian and Dacian population, which had not strongly identified itself with Imperial Rome, while Greek and Roman populations (mostly soldiers, officials, merchants) abandoned the land or were killed.[64] Because Pulpudeva survived as Plovdiv in Slavic languages, not under Philippopolis, some authors suggest that Thracian was not completely obliterated in the 7th century.[65][66]

## See also

* List of reconstructed Dacian words
* Thraco-Illyrian
* Paeonian language
* Ancient Macedonian language
* Thraco-Roman
* Paleo-Balkan languages
* Proto-Albanian language
* Proto-Balto-Slavic language
* Proto-Greek language

## Footnotes

1. ↑ Valdés (2017) cites other cognates to the root: Celtic deity Borvo and Latin ferveo "I boil" (from e-grade).[21]
2. ↑ A similarly looking word Mandicae 'to Mandica' is attested in an inscription from Asturia. It has been suggested to mean the name of a goddess related to foals.[50]

## References

1. ↑ Thracian at MultiTree on the Linguist List
2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Thracian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/thra1250.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Fortson 2004, p. 404
4. ↑ Arnold Joseph Toynbee, Some problems of Greek history, Oxford University Press, 1969, p. 56: In the late sixth century there were still Bessian-speaking monks in the monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai (see P. Geyer Itinera Hierosolymitana, Vienna 1898, Templaky, pp. 184; 213.)
5. ↑ Oliver Nicholson as ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity; Oxford University Press, 2018; ISBN 0192562460, p. 234:...The "Piacenza Pilgrim (56) mentioned Bessian-speaking monks on the Sinai Peninsula. ABA J. J. Wilkes, The Illyrians (1992)...
6. ↑ J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams as ed., Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture; Taylor & Francis, 1997; ISBN 1884964982, p. 576: The most recently attested Thracian personal names are found in two monasteries in the Near East (the Bessi of Mt Sinai) dating to the sixth century AD.
7. ↑ Bessian is the language of the Bessi, one of the most prominent Thracian tribes. The origin of the monasteries is explained in a mediaeval hagiography written by Symeon the Metaphrast in Vita Sancti Theodosii Coenobiarchae in which he wrote that Saint Theodosius founded on the shore of the Dead Sea a monastery with four churches, in each being spoken a different language, among which Bessian was found. The place at which the monasteries were founded was called "Cutila", which may be a Thracian name.
8. ↑ Mayer, Harvey E. "Dacian and Thracian as Southern Baltoidic ." In: Lituanus: Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences. Volume 38, No. 2 – Summer 1992.. Editor of this issue: Antanas Klimas, University of Rochester. ISSN 0024-5089. 1992 Lituanus Foundation, Inc.
9. ↑ 1994 Gottfried Schramm: A New Approach to Albanian History
10. ↑ Olteanu et al.
11. ↑ Duridanov, Ivan. "The Language of the Thracians". http://members.tripod.com/~Groznijat/thrac/thrac_3.html.
12. ↑ Duridanov, I. (1976). The Language of the Thracians (An abridged translation of Ezikyt na trakite, Ivan Duridanov, Nauka i izkustvo, Sofia, 1976. (c) Ivan Duridanov). http://www.kroraina.com/thrac_lang.
13. ↑ Georgiev, Vladimir I.. "Thrakisch und Dakisch". Band 29/2. Teilband Sprache und Literatur (Sprachen und Schriften [Forts.]), edited by Wolfgang Haase, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 1983. pp. 1151–1153. doi:10.1515/9783110847031-015
14. ↑ Fortson, B. (2004). Indo-European Language and Culture: an Introduction. p. 404.
15. ↑ Fraenkel, Ernst (1962). Litauisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. p. 124.
16. ↑ Beekes 2009, p. 225
17. ↑ Beekes 2009, p. 1287
18. ↑ Adams, D. (2013). A Dictionary of Tocharian B: Enlarged and Greatly Revised. p. 582.
19. ↑ Beekes 2009, pp. 1112–1113
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 20.6 Georgiev, Vladimir I. "Thrakisch und Dakisch". Band 29/2. Teilband Sprache und Literatur (Sprachen und Schriften [Forts.]), edited by Wolfgang Haase, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 1983. p. 1152. doi:10.1515/9783110847031-015
21. ↑ Valdés, Marcos Obaya. "Averamientu al astúricu. Vocalización de les nasales del grau-cero indo-européu: *mo > am / *no > an, y delles propuestes etimolóxiques". In: Lletres asturianes: Boletín Oficial de l'Academia de la Llingua Asturiana Nº. 117, 2017, p. 64. ISSN 2174-9612
22. ↑ Vasmer, M. (1973). Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), ed. Oleg Trubačev.
23. ↑ Предполага се, че освен названията на реки, селища, планини и други местни имена, като Пулпудева — Пловдив, Сердика — Средец, Месамбрия — Несебър, и др., в славянския език са били възприети и някои чисто тракийски думи: катеря се (качвам се), газя (тъпча), гудя (скътам, слагам), карпа (скала), руфя (мълния) и др., както и някои лични имена... В: Петър Петров, Образуване на българската държава (Издателство Наука и изкуство, София, 1981) стр. 67.
24. ↑ L. A. Gindin (1999) Troja, Thrakien und die Völker Altkleinasiens. Versuch einer historisch-philologischen Untersuchung. Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck. ISBN 9783851241891, p. 22.
25. ↑ Ivan Duridanov (1985) Die Sprache der Thraker. ISBN 9783888930317, Hieronymus, p. 13.
26. ↑ Rix, H. (2001). Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben [Lexicon of Indo-European Verbs] (in German).
27. ↑ de Vries, J. (1977). Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Etymological Dictionary of Old Norse] (in German). p. 498.
28. ↑ Witczak, Krzysztof Tomasz (2012). "Studies in Thracian vocabulary (I–VII)". Studia Indogermanica Lodziensia VII: 153–168. pp. 159–161.
29. ↑ Bartholomae, C. (1961). Altiranisches Wörterbuch [Old Iranian Dictionary] (in German). pp. 1564–1567.
30. ↑ Klein et al., edd. (2018) HCHL:1820, chapter XVI.101 'Phrygian' by Ligorio and Lubotsky.
31. ↑ Klein et al. edd., Jared (2018). "XVI Languages of fragmentary attestation, section 104 by Claude Brixhe". Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics. De Gruyter. p. 1851. ""There are as many interpretations of these as there are investigators; and as a result these monuments have not contributed anything to our knowledge of the language""
32. ↑ "Golden ring with Thracian inscription. NAIM-Sofia exhibition". National Archaeological Institute with Museum, Sofia. http://naim.bg/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=217.
33. ↑ Duridanov, Ivan (1985) (in de). Die Sprache der Thraker. Bulgarische Sammlung. 5. Hieronymus Verlag. ISBN 3-88893-031-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=ra3iAAAAMAAJ&q=Rolisteneas. "Ich bin Rolisteneas, Sprößling des Nereneas; Tilezypta, Arazerin nach ihrer Heimat, hat mich der Erde übergeben (d.h. begraben)."
34. ↑ Russu, Ion I. (1969) (in de). Die Sprache der Thrako-Daker. Ed. Ştiinţificā. https://books.google.com/books?id=IgUQAQAAIAAJ&q=Rolisteneas.
35. ↑ Dimitrov, Peter A. (2009). "The Kyolmen Stone Inscription". Thracian Language and Greek and Thracian Epigraphy. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-4438-1325-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=8gkaBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5.
36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Written from right to left.
37. ↑ Written from left to right.
38. ↑ Pleket, H.W., and R.S. Stroud, eds. 1994. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. 41–584. Amsterdam. doi:10.1163/1874-6772_seg_a41_584
39. ↑ Orel, Vladimir E. (1986). "On Two Minor Thracian Inscriptions". Glotta 64 (1/2): 48–49. Accessed 22 July 2024.
40. ↑ Georgiev, Vladimir I. (1981). Introduction to the History of the Indo-European Languages (3rd ed.). Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. p. 116. "Μεζην = nom.-voc., which is under the figure of the horseman, is the name of the Thracian god-horseman; it corresponds to the name (epithet) of the Messapian god Menzana (Iupiter), to whom horses were offered as a sacrifice. Both names are derived from *mendy-ān 'horseman', a derivative of *mendi(o)- 'horse'; they are related to Alb. mëz- 'stallion' and Rum. (Dac.) mînz 'stallion'."
41. ↑ Orel, Vladimir E. (1986). "On Two Minor Thracian Inscriptions". Glotta 64 (1/2): 49. "Georgiev (1977, 112) suggested to connect MEZHNAI with Iuppiter Menzana, which seems more plausible, if one remembers of the mounted figure on the ring, Menzana being a deity connected with the horse-cult. (...) The second word mezēnai could be identified with Menzana and treated as a name of a deity.". Accessed 22 July 2024.
42. ↑ Meudler, Marcel (2003). "Mézence, un théonyme messapien?" (in FR). Revue des Études Anciennes 105 (1): 5–6. doi:10.3406/rea.2003.5647. https://www.persee.fr/doc/rea_0035-2004_2003_num_105_1_5647.
43. ↑ Oreshko, Rostislav (2020). "The onager kings of Anatolia: Hartapus, Gordis, Muška and the steppe strand in early Phrygian culture". Kadmos 59 (1–2): 118=. doi:10.1515/kadmos-2020-0005. https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-03880045/file/Oreshko The onager kings of Anatolia - final.pdf.
44. ↑ Pax Leonard, Stephen (2021). "Hipponyms in Indo-European: using register to disentangle the etyma". Journal of Language Relationship 19 (1–2): 4. doi:10.1515/jlr-2021-191-206.
45. ↑ Kaluzkaja, Irina. "Thracian-Illyrian language parallels: Thrac. MEZENAI – Illyr. Menzanas". In: Thracian World at Crossroad of Civilizations – Proceedings of 7th International Congress of Thracology. Bucharest: 1996. pp. 372–373.
46. ↑ Francisco Marcos-Marin. "Etymology and Semantics: Theoretical Considerations apropos of an Analysis of the Etymological Problem of Spanish mañero, mañeria." In: Historical Semantics—Historical Word-Formation. de Gruyter, 1985. p. 381.
47. ↑ Balmori, C. Hernando. "Notes on the etymology of sp. 'perro'". In: Etudes Celtiques, vol. 4, fascicule 1, 1941. p. 49. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/ecelt.1941.1177
48. ↑ Georgiev, Vladimir I.. "Thrakisch und Dakisch". Band 29/2. Teilband Sprache und Literatur (Sprachen und Schriften [Forts.]), edited by Wolfgang Haase, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 1983. p. 1161. doi:10.1515/9783110847031-015
49. ↑ Cazacu, Boris (1980). "Einige Fragen zur Ausarbeitung eines neuenetymologischen Wörterbuchs der rumänischen Sprache [DISKUSSION AKTUELLER PROBLEME]". Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 96 (5–6): 509–510. doi:10.1515/zrph.1980.96.5-6.489. "Vl. Georgiev zeigte, daß es dieses Wort auch im Thrakischen gab, wo die Form Mezenai unter dem Bild des thrakischen Ritters auftaucht.".
50. ↑ Valdés, Marcos Obaya. "Averamientu al astúricu. Vocalización de les nasales del grau-cero indo-européu: *mo > am / *no > an, y delles propuestes etimolóxiques". In: Lletres asturianes: Boletín Oficial de l'Academia de la Llingua Asturiana Nº. 117, 2017, p. 67. ISSN 2174-9612
51. ↑ Encyclopedia of European peoples, Carl Waldman, Catherine Mason, Infobase Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0-8160-4964-5, p. 205.
52. ↑ Archaeology and language: the puzzle of Indo-European origins, Colin Renfrew, CUP Archive, 1990, ISBN 0-521-38675-6, p. 71.
53. ↑ The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, E. Sollberger, and N. G. L. Hammond, ISBN 0-521-22717-8, 1992, page 612: "According to Strabo (vii.6.1cf.st.Byz.446.15) the Thracian -bria word meant polis but it is an inaccurate translation."
54. ↑ Peregrine, Peter N.; Ember, Melvin (2001). Encyclopedia of Prehistory. 4 : Europe. Springer. ISBN 978-0-306-46258-0.
55. ↑ Polomé, Edgar Charles (1982). "20e". In Boardman, John. Balkan Languages (Illyrian, Thracian and Daco-Moesian). The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 3, Part 1: The Prehistory of the Balkans; and the Middle East and the Aegean world, tenth to eighth centuries B.C. (2nd ed.). London: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22496-3.
56. ↑ See C. Brixhe – Ancient languages of Asia Minor, Cambridge University Press, 2008
We will dismiss, at least temporarily, the idea of a Thraco-Phrygian unity. Thraco-Dacian (or Thracian and Daco-Mysian) seems to belong to the eastern (satem) group of Indo-European languages and its (their) phonetic system is far less conservative than that of Phrygian (see Brixhe and Panayotou 1994, §§ 3ff.)
57. ↑ Klein et al. edd., J. (2018). "81 'The Phonology of Slavic' by Daniel Petit". Handbook of Comparative and Historical Linguistics. p. 1966.
58. ↑ Arumaa, P. (1966). Urslavische Grammatik: Einführung in Das Vergleichende Studium Der Slavischen Sprachen, Band I: Einleitung • Lautlehre. pp. 18–23.
59. ↑ Holst (2009):66.
60. ↑ Daskalov, Roumen; Vezenkov, Alexander (13 March 2015). Entangled Histories of the Balkans – Volume Three: Shared Pasts, Disputed Legacies. BRILL. p. 51. ISBN 9789004290365.
61. ↑ R.J. Crampton (1997). A Concise History of Bulgaria. Cambridge University Press. pp. 4. ISBN 0-521-56719-X.
62. ↑ Daskalov, Roumen; Vezenkov, Alexander (13 March 2015). Entangled Histories of the Balkans – Volume Three: Shared Pasts, Disputed Legacies. BRILL. p. 10. ISBN 9789004290365.
63. ↑ Trever, Albert Augustus.  History of Ancient Civilization. Harcourt, Brace. p. 571
64. ↑ Michael W. Weithmann, Die slawische Bevölkerung auf der griechischen Halbinsel (Munich 1978)
65. ↑ Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997) (in en). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. p. 576. ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=tzU3RIV2BWIC&pg=PA576.
66. ↑ Katičić, Radoslav (1976) (in en). Ancient Languages of the Balkans. Mouton. pp. 136. https://books.google.com/books?id=a29JAAAAYAAJ.

## General references

* Beekes, Robert S. P. (2009). Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-17418-4.

## Further reading

* Alexianu, Marius-Tiberius (2008). "La fin du statut servile? Affranchissement, libération, abolition. Volume II. Besançon 15-17 décembre 2005" (in fr). Actes des colloques du Groupe de recherche sur l'esclavage dans l'antiquité. 30. Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté. pp. 487–492.
* Duridanov, Ivan (1969). Die Thrakisch- und Dakisch-Baltischen Sprachbeziehungen [Thracian and Dacian Baltic Language Contacts]. Other. Verlag der Bulgarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sofia.
* Georgiev, Vladimir (July 1966). "The Genesis of the Balkan Peoples". The Slavonic and East European Review 44 (103): 285–297. ISSN 0037-6795. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4205776. Retrieved 31 May 2021.
* Georgiev, V. I. Introduction to the History of the Indo-European Languages. Sofia: 1981.
* Holst, J. H. "Armenische Studien". Wiesbaden: 2009.
* Krimpas, Panagiotis G. (2022). "Four centuries of theorizing on "Thracian" language(s): A critical new look". Balkanistica 35: 69–110. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358880073.
* Russu, I. I. Limba Traco-Dacilor / Die Sprache der Thrako-Daker, Bucharest (1967, 1969).
* Sowa, Wojciech (2020-05-01). "Thracian". Palaeohispanica. Revista sobre lenguas y culturas de la Hispania Antigua (20): 787–817. doi:10.36707/palaeohispanica.v0i20.377. ISSN 1578-5386.
* Yanakieva, Svetlana (2018). "The Thracian Language". ORPHEUS: Journal of Indo-European and Thracian Studies 25: 26–68. https://www.academia.edu/47789050.

### Inscriptions

* Kretschmer, Paul (1914). "Die Erste Thrakische Inschrift" (in German). Glotta 6 (1): 74–79. Accessed July 7, 2021.
* Orel, Vladimir E. (1997). "The Inscription from Kjolmen". Mediterranean Language Review 9: 77–82. ISSN 0724-7567. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13173/medilangrevi.9.1997.0077.
* "II. Thracian Inscriptions". In: Sears, Matthew, et al. Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. First Edition ed., Getty Publications, 2025. pp. 129–132. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/124308.

### Onomastics

* Dana, Dan (2005). "Sur quelques noms fantômes thraces et daces" (in fr). Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 154: 293–298. ISSN 0084-5388. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20191011.
* Dana, Dan (2012). "Un lexique des noms thraces: prolégomènes critiques" (in fr). Revue de philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes LXXXVI (1): 17–42. doi:10.3917/phil.861.0017. ISSN 0035-1652. https://doi.org/10.3917/phil.861.0017.
* Dana, Dan (2011-01-01). "Onomasticon Thracicum (Onom Thrac). Répertoire des noms indigènes de Thrace, Macédoine Orientale, Mésies, Dacie et Bithynie" (in fr). Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 17 (1): 25–45. doi:10.1163/092907711X575313. ISSN 0929-077X. https://doi.org/10.1163/092907711X575313.
* Slavova, Mirena (1995). "Die thrakischen Frauennamen aus Bulgarien. Nachträge und Berichtigungen" (in DE). Orpheus: Journal of Indo-European and Thracian Studies (Институт за балканистика с Център по тракология - Българска академия на науките) (5): 39–43.

### Lexicon

* Janakieva, Svetlana; Dimitrov, Peter A. (1996). "Thesaurus Linguae Thracicae 1. Herodotus and the Logographs". Orpheus: Journal of Indo-European and Thracian Studies 6 (6): 89–106. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=760713.
* Mihaylova, Bilyana; Mircheva, Albena. "The Thracian Glosses Revisited". In: Ancient Thrace: Myth and Reality: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Congress of Thracology, September 3–7, 2017. Volume 2. Sofia: St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, 2022. pp. 209–218. ISBN 978-954-07-5624-0.
* Paliga, Sorin (1987). "Thracian Terms for 'Township' and 'Fortress', and Related Place-Names". World Archaeology 19 (1): 23–29. doi:10.1080/00438243.1987.9980021. ISSN 0043-8243. http://www.jstor.org/stable/124496. Retrieved October 16, 2020.
* Sotiroff, George (1963). "A tentative glossary of Thracian words". Canadian Journal of Linguistics 8 (2): 97–110. doi:10.1017/S000841310000520X.
* Witczak, Krzysztof (2012). "Studies in Thracian vocabulary (I-VII)" (in en). Studia Indogermanica Lodziensia VII: 153–168. ISSN 1506-7254. https://www.academia.edu/25248385. Retrieved 31 May 2021.

### Toponymy and hydronymy

* Janakieva, Svetlana (2006). "Lexikalische Identität zwischen thrakischen Hydronymen und Ethnonymen" (in DE). Orpheus: Journal of Indo-European and Thracian Studies 16 (16): 43–53. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=736516.
* Mircheva, Albena (2012). "Thracian Тoponyms in Inscriptions of Late Antiquity". Orpheus: Journal of Indo-European and Thracian Studies 19 (19): 53–56. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=417838.
* Yanakieva, Svetlana (2011). "Die thrakische Hydronymie in Kleinasien" (in DE). Orpheus: Journal of Indo-European and Thracian Studies 18 (18): 25–32. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=75448.
* Yanakieva, Svetlana (2015). "Thracian Toponymy until the End of the First Millennium BC". Orpheus: Journal of Indo-European and Thracian Studies 22 (22): 5–28. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=752470.

## External links

* The Language of the Thracians, an English translation of Ivan Duridanov's 1975 essay Ezikyt na trakite
* Thracian glossary
* Palaeolexicon – Word study tool of ancient languages (including Thracian dictionary)

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