Lydian language
Lydian is an extinct Indo-European[1] Anatolian language spoken in the region of Lydia, in western Anatolia (now in Turkey).
Most of the inscriptions are on marble or stone and are sepulchral in content, but several are decrees of one sort or another, and some half-dozen texts seem to be in verse, with a stress-based meter and vowel assonance at the end of the line.
Tomb inscriptions include many epitaphs, which typically begin with the words 𐤤𐤮 𐤥𐤵𐤫𐤠𐤮 es wãnas ("this grave").
The language of the Ionian Greek poet Hipponax (sixth century BCE, born at Ephesus) is interspersed with Lydian words, many of them from popular slang.
[10] It is still not known whether those differences represent developments peculiar to pre-Lydian or the retention in Lydian of archaic features that were lost in the other Anatolian languages.
Lydian is notable for its extensive consonant clusters, which resulted from the loss of word-final short vowels, together with massive syncope; there may have been an unwritten [ə] in such sequences.
This older system wrote v, ν, s, and ś, instead of today's w (𐤥), ñ (𐤸), š (𐤳), and s (𐤮).
The modern system renders the sibilants more naturally and prevents confusion between v (= w 𐤥) and the Greek nu symbol ν (= ñ 𐤸).)
[16] The sign 𐤣 has traditionally been transliterated d and interpreted as an interdental /ð/ resulting from the sound change *i̯ > ð or the lenition of Proto-Anatolian *t. However, it has recently been argued that in all contexts d in fact represents the palatal glide /j/, previously considered absent from Lydian.
If the identification is correct it would have the interesting historical consequence that king Croesus was not saved from being burnt at the stake, as Herodotus tells us,[18] but chose suicide and was subsequently deified.
A genitive case seems to be present in the plural, but in the singular usually a so-called possessive is used instead, which is similar to the Luwic languages: a suffix -li is added to the root of a substantive, and thus an adjective is formed that is declined in turn.
[5] Examples of verbal conjugation:[28][5] To emphasize where an important next part of a sentence begins, Lydian uses a series of enclitic particles that can be affixed to a pivotal word.
[29] Being among the first texts found, it provided a limited equivalent of the Rosetta Stone and permitted a first understanding of the Lydian language.
It is possibly derived from the native town of King Gyges of Lydia, founder of the Mermnad dynasty, which was Tyrrha in classical antiquity and is now Tire, Turkey.
[37] All of those loanwords confirm a strong cultural interaction between the Lydians and the Greeks since the Creto-Mycenaean era (2nd millennium BCE).
[43] Analogous to the bilingual text the introduction tells who built the monument (a certain Karos), and for whom (both his son and his ancestors), while the final sentence of the original inscription may be the usual curse for those who would dare to damage it.
The poetic middle part seems to claim that the monument was built after consulting a divine oracle, cited between Lydian "quotation marks" ▷...▷, and continues with an appeal to pay as much respect to the builder as to the venerable forefathers.
German 'Haus und Hof') and alliteration (kλidaλ kofuλ-k qiraλ qelλ-k, 'land and water, property and estate') are absent in the poetical texts, but do occur in the prose bilingual.
