PHRYGIAN LANGUAGE

Phrygian is known mainly from inscriptions, both at an early (Old Phrygian) and at a later (New Phrygian) state.

At some time in the 8^th century BC, the Phrygians devised an alphabet adapted from Greek and Semitic models. In this are written some 250 Old Phrygian texts (mostly short, but with a few of reasonable length) ranging from the second half of the 8^th century to the second half of the 3^rd century BC, the majority belonging to the pre-Achaemenid period (8^th-6^th centuries BC). They include monumental rock inscriptions, e.g. 'ates... midai lavagraei vanaktei edaes', lit. 'Ates... to Midas chief [and] king has dedicated'.

During the Hellenistic and early Roman periods, Phrygian must have been reduced to use as a spoken vernacular, but from the 1^st to 3^rd centuries AD it turns up again in written form, in the Greek alphabet. WE have over 100 short New Phrygian inscriptions, most of them consisting of curse formulae, often added to epitaphs that are otherwise in Greek; e.g. 'iosni semoun knoumanei kakon abberet etitekmenos eitou', lit. 'whoever to this grave harm should bring, cursed may he go'.

Phrygian is an Indo-European language, but in spite of its geographical location it does belong to the Anatolian sub-group (Hittite, Lycian, etc.); its closest connections are rather with Greek. But our knowledge of Phrygian remains altogether rather poor.

M.Lejeune,

"Oxford Classical Dictionary," 3rd ed. (1996), p.1177