Although it is officially considered a dialect, Tsakonian is a divergent variety of Greek frequently classified as a separate language, as it is not intelligible to speakers of standard Modern Greek. Today, it is spoken in a small mountainous area in the interior of the eastern coast of the Peloponnesian peninsula, in the Argolic Gulf, […]
Languages
Posted inBronze Age Archaeology
An ancient inscription from the Late Bronze Age in an unknown language found in Georgia in the Caucasus
Recent archaeological excavations have uncovered a basalt tablet with inscriptions in an unknown language near Lake Bashplemi, in the Dmanisi region of Georgia. The discovery is significant not only because of the rarity of the material found but also because it could reveal unknown aspects of the ancient civilizations that inhabited the Caucasus. The finding, […]
Posted inIron Age Archaeology
Hieroglyph meaning “city” in the Luwian language spoken in Anatolia until the 7th century B.C. deciphered
A research team led by Petra M. Goedegebuure from the University of Chicago has presented a groundbreaking study on the word used for “city” in the Luwian language, spoken in ancient Anatolia. This research, published in the academic journal Anatolian Studies, offers not only a detailed linguistic analysis of the word in question but also […]
Posted inBronze Age Archaeology, Culture
Scientists Challenge the Kurgan Hypothesis: Horse Domestication Not Linked to Indo-European Language Spread
Riding a horse is a physical challenge that can be tough on the body. But can it actually change your skeleton? Archaeologists from the University of Colorado Boulder set out to explore this question and uncovered some surprising results. In a recent study, they examined evidence from medical studies of modern riders and ancient human […]
Posted inAntiquity
Astures: A Non-Indo-European People in Northern Spain?
Professor Xaverio Ballester from the University of Valencia proposed an intriguing hypothesis in 2002: that the ancient Astures, inhabitants of what is now mainly Asturias and León in northern Spain, might have had a non-Indo-European origin, related to the Iberian and Aquitanian peoples of the Pyrenean region. This proposal challenges the traditional view that considers […]
Posted inIron Age Archaeology
A Paleo-Hispanic Alphabet Found on the Slate Tablet from the Casas del Turuñuelo Site
Researchers from the Institute of Archaeology of Mérida (IAM), a joint center of the CSIC and the Junta of Extremadura, are studying a series of signs inscribed on the slate tablet from the Tartessian site of Casas del Turuñuelo (Guareña, Badajoz) which discovery was announced last week, and according to initial interpretations, it appears to […]
Posted inHistory
How Archaeologists Discovered the First Diplomatic Treatises, Written in a Previously Unknown Language
In 1964, a team of archaeologists from the University of Rome La Sapienza, led by Paolo Matthiae, began excavating at Tell Mardikh, a site located 55 kilometers southeast of Aleppo, Syria. Their goal was to demonstrate that Syria had hosted its own cultures in ancient times. Over the years, the discoveries accumulated: ancient palaces, statues, […]
Posted inAntiquity
How did Etruscan, Hittite, Phoenician, Latin, and other languages of Antiquity sound? (Video)
Throughout history, many languages have flourished and disappeared, leaving behind few written records of how they actually sounded. Thanks to advances in historical linguistics and experimental phonetics, it is now possible to reconstruct with greater precision the pronunciation of ancient languages such as Latin, Etruscan, Ancient Greek, and other languages of the past. Classical Latin, […]
Posted inAncient Greece, Culture
The Lemnos Stele, a funerary inscription from the 6th century B.C. that links the Pelasgians to the Etruscans
In 1885, a unique stele was found as part of the walls of a church in the town of Kaminia on the Greek island of Lemnos. It has been dated to the 6th century BC, prior to the conquest of the island by the Athenians in 510 BC to the Pelasgians. This was the name […]
Posted inModern Era
North American Plains Sign Language, older than European and Ottoman Sign Languages
We often see in Westerns how Indians manage to communicate with each other or with the white man through a series of hand gestures, sometimes accompanied by a phonetic transcription with the infinitive cliché introduced by Fenimore Cooper in his novel The Last of the Mohicans. Such a transcription should be unnecessary, although it is […]
