It is attested from three inscriptions: two poems of 34 and 71 engraved lines, respectively, on the so-called Xanthian stele (or Xanthian Obelisk, found at Xanthos (which was known to the Lycians as Arñna), and another, shorter, inscription (nine lines) on a sarcophagus at Antiphellus (Habessus).
Pixre apparently is the name of a Lycian poet buried here, who in the inscription tells of the "Nymphs of Phellos", who were his Muses.
Milyan seems to be the more archaic language,[10] as it preserves several early Anatolian characteristics, where Lycian shows a more innovative stage.
This may have to do with the subject of the Milyan texts: while texts in Lycian are quite mundane (military exploits, tomb building activities), the two Milyan inscriptions also refer to religious rituals, where a more archaic sacred language may have been deemed appropriate (cf.
There are two tenses, present-future and preterite, with three persons singular and plural:[12] A suffix -s- (cognate with Greek, Latin -/sk/-), appended to the stem is thought to make a verb iterative:[12] All known Milyan texts — the two poems on the North and West side of the Xanthian Obelisk and the so-called Pixre poem at Antiphellos — are in verse.
Dutch scholar Alric van den Broek and German linguist Diether Schürr[9][6][8] also identify other structural features suggestive of poetry, such as ring composition, internal rhyme, and the use of certain key words repeated in the strophes.
The phonological implications of van den Broek's model may also fit known features of accent in Lycian, Anatolian and Proto-Indo-European.