Lycian is an extinct language of the Luwic branch of Anatolian, itself part of the Indo-European family, spoken in the mountainous region of Lycia in southwestern Anatolia and attested mainly in inscriptions from the fifth and fourth centuries BC. It was written in its own alphabet, closely related to Greek but including at least one letter borrowed from the neighboring Carian script, and survives in roughly 172 stone inscriptions along with coin legends and burial texts carved into the region's distinctive rock-cut tombs. Understanding of the language advanced greatly after the 1973 discovery of the Letoon trilingual, an inscription recording the same text in Lycian, Greek and Aramaic, which gave scholars a secure basis for interpreting Lycian grammar and vocabulary. The language died out around the start of the first century BC as its speakers shifted to Greek following the region's absorption into the Hellenistic and then Roman world.
Facts
RegionLycia, in southern Anatolia, between the modern cities of Antalya and Fethiye, Turkey. 1 Speaker Count Proto-Language StatusLycian is directly attested in inscriptions rather than reconstructed, and is classified in the Luwian subgroup of Anatolian on the basis of shared sound changes and grammatical endings; since only the Luwian parent language is attested before 1000 BC, when the classical era Anatolian dialects diverged is not precisely known. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Lycian Language
Wikimedia FoundationIntroductionQuote, Introduction
Lycian became extinct around the beginning of the first century BC, replaced by the Ancient Greek language during the Hellenization of Anatolia.
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