Trojan language
Encyclopedia
The language spoken by the Trojans
in the Iliad
is Homeric Greek
.
However, there has been some scholarly debate on what language the historical Trojans
would have spoken at the time of the Trojan War
.
The Anatolia
n city of Wilusa
, identified with the site Troy VII
a, is identified with the Troy of the Greek epics to a greater or lesser degree, depending on judgements regarding the historicity of the Iliad
. The language likely to have been prevalent in the historical city is Luwian
, although there are no direct records.
The cultural context in which the lost Trojan language existed was described by Jaan Puhvel
, Homer and Hittite (1991).
have no difficulty in speaking to their Greek
opponents. However, this may merely be evidence that a fictional convention frequently used in narratives in later times had already been adopted by the poet of the Iliad: for example, Jason
finds no language barrier with Medea
in Colchis
, and Trojan Aeneas
converses without difficulty both with Punic Dido and with Latin Turnus
.
Greek legend gives further indications on the subject of language at Troy. For one thing, the allies of Troy, listed at length in the Trojan Battle Order
which closes book 2 of the Iliad, are depicted as speaking various languages and thus needing to have orders translated to them by their commanders (2.802-6). Elsewhere in the poem (4.433–38) they are compared to sheep and lambs bleating in a field as they talk together in their different languages. The inference is that, from the Greek point-of-view, the languages of Trojans and their allied neighbors were not as unified as those of the Achaeans.
Hilary Mackie has detected in the Iliad a consistent differentiation between representations in Greek of Achaean and Trojan speech; in simplest terms, Trojans speak poetically, with the aim of avoiding conflict, whereas Achaeans repeatedly engage in public, ritualized abuse that linguists term (from another source) flyting
: "Achaeans are proficient at blame, while Trojans perform praise poetry" (Mackie 1998:83).
reported a Lydia
n assertion of a Lydian origin for the Etruscans, and Virgil
and Horace
refer poetically to Etruscans as Lydians. According to Herodotus these people, led by a Tarquin
, abandoned Asia Minor
after a series of famines in the eighth century BCE, migrating to Italy at that time. Dionysius of Halicarnassus
, citing language and custom like a modern ethnologist, found an autochthonous rather than Lydian origin:
seal was found in the excavations at Troy, probably dating from about 1275 BC. Not considered a locally-made object, this item from the Trojan "state chancellery" was inscribed in Luwian
and to date provides the only archaeological evidence for any language at Troy at this period. It indicates that Luwian was known at Troy, which is not surprising since it was a lingua franca
of the Hittite empire, of which Troy was probably in some form of dependency.
Another sphere of research concerns a handful of Trojan personal names mentioned in the Iliad. Among sixteen recorded names of Priam's relatives, at least nine (including Anchises
and Aeneas
) are not Greek and may be traced to "pre-Greek Asia Minor". On this basis Calvert Watkins
in 1986 argued that the Trojans may have been Luwian-speaking. For instance, the name Priam is connected to the Luwian compound Pariya-muwa, which means "exceptionally courageous".
Additionally, the Alaksandu treaty describes Mira
, Haballa, Seha and Wilusa
(usually identified with Troy) as the lands of Arzawa
, although this "has no historical or political basis", suggesting that it was the language that they had in common. Frank Starke of the University of Tübingen concludes that "the certainty is growing that Wilusa
/Troy belonged to the greater Luwian-speaking community". Joachim Latacz
also regards Luwian as the official language of Homeric Troy, but he finds it highly probable that another language was in daily use. Ilya Yakubovich provides a critical evaluation of the arguments by Watkins and Starke in his University of Chicago
dissertation and concludes that the ethnicity of the Trojans remains completely unknown.
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
in the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
is Homeric Greek
Homeric Greek
Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is an archaic version of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain other dialects, such as Aeolic Greek. It later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic poetry, typically in...
.
However, there has been some scholarly debate on what language the historical Trojans
Historicity of the Iliad
The extent of the historical basis of the Iliad has been a topic of scholarly debate in classical studies since the 19th century.While the Age of Enlightenment had rejected the story of the Trojan War as fable, the discoveries made by Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik reopened the question in modern...
would have spoken at the time of the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
.
The Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
n city of Wilusa
Wilusa
Wilusa was a city of the late Bronze Age Assuwa confederation of western Anatolia.It is known from six references in 13th century BC Hittite sources, including...
, identified with the site Troy VII
Troy VII
Troy VII, in the mound at Hisarlik, is an archaeological layer of Troy representing late Hittite Empire to Neo-Hittite times . It was a walled city with towers reaching a height of nine meters; the foundations of one of its bastions measure 18 meters by 18 meters...
a, is identified with the Troy of the Greek epics to a greater or lesser degree, depending on judgements regarding the historicity of the Iliad
Historicity of the Iliad
The extent of the historical basis of the Iliad has been a topic of scholarly debate in classical studies since the 19th century.While the Age of Enlightenment had rejected the story of the Trojan War as fable, the discoveries made by Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik reopened the question in modern...
. The language likely to have been prevalent in the historical city is Luwian
Luwian language
Luwian is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Luwian is closely related to Hittite, and was among the languages spoken during the second and first millennia BC by population groups in central and western Anatolia and northern Syria...
, although there are no direct records.
The cultural context in which the lost Trojan language existed was described by Jaan Puhvel
Jaan Puhvel
Jaan Puhvel is an Estonian-American Indo-Europeanist. As a student of Georges Dumezil, he also specializes in comparative mythology....
, Homer and Hittite (1991).
Greek epics
The Trojans in the IliadIliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
have no difficulty in speaking to their Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
opponents. However, this may merely be evidence that a fictional convention frequently used in narratives in later times had already been adopted by the poet of the Iliad: for example, Jason
Jason
Jason was a late ancient Greek mythological hero from the late 10th Century BC, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus...
finds no language barrier with Medea
Medea
Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...
in Colchis
Colchis
In ancient geography, Colchis or Kolkhis was an ancient Georgian state kingdom and region in Western Georgia, which played an important role in the ethnic and cultural formation of the Georgian nation.The Kingdom of Colchis contributed significantly to the development of medieval Georgian...
, and Trojan Aeneas
Aeneas
Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...
converses without difficulty both with Punic Dido and with Latin Turnus
Turnus
In Virgil's Aeneid, Turnus was the King of the Rutuli, and the chief antagonist of the hero Aeneas.-Biography:Prior to Aeneas' arrival in Italy, Turnus was the primary potential suitor of Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, King of the Latin people. Upon Aeneas' arrival, however, Lavinia is promised to...
.
Greek legend gives further indications on the subject of language at Troy. For one thing, the allies of Troy, listed at length in the Trojan Battle Order
Trojan Battle Order
The Trojan Battle Order or Trojan Catalogue is a section of the second book of the Iliad listing the allied contingents that fought for Troy in the Trojan War...
which closes book 2 of the Iliad, are depicted as speaking various languages and thus needing to have orders translated to them by their commanders (2.802-6). Elsewhere in the poem (4.433–38) they are compared to sheep and lambs bleating in a field as they talk together in their different languages. The inference is that, from the Greek point-of-view, the languages of Trojans and their allied neighbors were not as unified as those of the Achaeans.
Hilary Mackie has detected in the Iliad a consistent differentiation between representations in Greek of Achaean and Trojan speech; in simplest terms, Trojans speak poetically, with the aim of avoiding conflict, whereas Achaeans repeatedly engage in public, ritualized abuse that linguists term (from another source) flyting
Flyting
Flyting or fliting is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults, often conducted in verse, between two parties.-Description:Flyting is a ritual, poetic exchange of insults practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries. The root is the Old English word flītan meaning quarrel...
: "Achaeans are proficient at blame, while Trojans perform praise poetry" (Mackie 1998:83).
Greek historiography
HerodotusHerodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
reported a Lydia
Lydia
Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....
n assertion of a Lydian origin for the Etruscans, and Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
and Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
refer poetically to Etruscans as Lydians. According to Herodotus these people, led by a Tarquin
Tarquin
Tarquin may refer to:* Tarquin , a chamber operaPeople with the given name Tarquin:* Tarquin the Elder , fifth of the seven legendary kings of Rome* Tarquin the Proud , last of the seven legendary kings of Rome...
, abandoned Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
after a series of famines in the eighth century BCE, migrating to Italy at that time. Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...
, citing language and custom like a modern ethnologist, found an autochthonous rather than Lydian origin:
- "And I do not believe either that the Tyrrhenians were a colony of the Lydians; for they do not use the same language as the latter nor can it be alleged that, though they no longer speak a similar tongue they still retain some other indications of their mother country. For they neither worship the same gods as the Lydians, nor make use of similar laws or institutions."
Luwian theory
There was not enough evidence fruitfully to speculate upon the language of Troy until 1995, when a late HittiteHittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
seal was found in the excavations at Troy, probably dating from about 1275 BC. Not considered a locally-made object, this item from the Trojan "state chancellery" was inscribed in Luwian
Luwian language
Luwian is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Luwian is closely related to Hittite, and was among the languages spoken during the second and first millennia BC by population groups in central and western Anatolia and northern Syria...
and to date provides the only archaeological evidence for any language at Troy at this period. It indicates that Luwian was known at Troy, which is not surprising since it was a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
of the Hittite empire, of which Troy was probably in some form of dependency.
Another sphere of research concerns a handful of Trojan personal names mentioned in the Iliad. Among sixteen recorded names of Priam's relatives, at least nine (including Anchises
Anchises
In Greek mythology, Anchises was the son of Capys and Themiste . His major claim to fame in Greek mythology is that he was a mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite . One version is that Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess and seduced him for nearly two weeks of lovemaking...
and Aeneas
Aeneas
Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...
) are not Greek and may be traced to "pre-Greek Asia Minor". On this basis Calvert Watkins
Calvert Watkins
Calvert Watkins is a professor Emeritus of linguistics and the classics at Harvard University and professor-in-residence at UCLA.His doctoral dissertation, Indo-European Origins of the Celtic Verb I...
in 1986 argued that the Trojans may have been Luwian-speaking. For instance, the name Priam is connected to the Luwian compound Pariya-muwa, which means "exceptionally courageous".
Additionally, the Alaksandu treaty describes Mira
Mira
Mira also known as Omicron Ceti , is a red giant star estimated 200-400 light years away in the constellation Cetus. Mira is a binary star, consisting of the red giant Mira A along with Mira B. Mira A is also an oscillating variable star and was the first non-supernova variable star discovered,...
, Haballa, Seha and Wilusa
Wilusa
Wilusa was a city of the late Bronze Age Assuwa confederation of western Anatolia.It is known from six references in 13th century BC Hittite sources, including...
(usually identified with Troy) as the lands of Arzawa
Arzawa
Arzawa in the second half of the second millennium BC was the name of a region and a political entity in Western Anatolia, the core area of which was centered on the Hermos and Maeander river valleys, corresponding with the Late Bronze Age kingdoms of the...
, although this "has no historical or political basis", suggesting that it was the language that they had in common. Frank Starke of the University of Tübingen concludes that "the certainty is growing that Wilusa
Wilusa
Wilusa was a city of the late Bronze Age Assuwa confederation of western Anatolia.It is known from six references in 13th century BC Hittite sources, including...
/Troy belonged to the greater Luwian-speaking community". Joachim Latacz
Joachim Latacz
Joachim Latacz is a German classical philologist.Latacz studied Classical Philology, Indo-Germanic languages, Ancient History and Archaeology from 1954-1956 at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg...
also regards Luwian as the official language of Homeric Troy, but he finds it highly probable that another language was in daily use. Ilya Yakubovich provides a critical evaluation of the arguments by Watkins and Starke in his University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
dissertation and concludes that the ethnicity of the Trojans remains completely unknown.