Dacian language

Dacian () is an extinct language generally believed to be a member of the Indo-European language family that was spoken in the ancient region of Dacia.

The Dacian language is poorly documented. Unlike Phrygian, which is documented by c. 200 inscriptions, only one Dacian inscription is believed to have survived. The Dacian names for a number of medicinal plants and herbs may survive in ancient literary texts, including about 60 plant-names in Dioscorides. About 1,150 personal names and 900 toponyms may also be of Dacian origin. Of about 100 Dacian words reconstructed through 20th century comparative linguistics techniques, only 20–25 had achieved wide acceptance by 1982.

Sources

right|thumb|A fragment of a vase collected by [[Mihail Dimitriu at the site of Poiana, Galați (Piroboridava), Romania illustrating the use of Greek and Latin letters by a Dacian potter (source: Dacia journal, 1933)]]

Many characteristics of the Dacian language are disputed or unknown. No lengthy texts in Dacian exist, only a few glosses and personal names in ancient Greek and Latin texts of the Roman era. No Dacian-language inscriptions have been discovered, except some of names in the Latin or Greek alphabet. What is known about the language derives from:

thumb|Gold [[stater coin found in Dacia. Obverse: Roman magistrate with lictors. Legend ΚΟΣΩΝ (Coson) and (left centre) monogram BR or OΛB. Reverse: Eagle clutching laurel-wreath. Probably minted in a Greek Black sea city (Olbia?), commissioned by a Thracian or Getan king (Cotiso? Koson?) or by a high Roman official (Brutus?), in honour of the other. Late 1st century BC]]

Placenames, river-names and personal names, including the names of kings. The coin inscription KOΣON (Koson) may also be a personal name, of the king who issued the coin.
The Dacian names of about fifty plants written in Greek and Roman sources (see List of Dacian plant names). Etymologies have been established for only a few of them.

Some scholars have used the substratum words found in Romanian, the language that is spoken today in most of the region once occupied by Dacian-speakers, to reconstruct Dacian words. According to Romanian historian Ion I. Russu, there are supposedly over 160 Romanian words of Dacian origin, representing, together with derivates, 10% of the basic Romanian vocabulary; however, many linguists consider them debatable. Romanian words for which a Dacian origin has been proposed include: ("dragon"), ("cheese"), ("bank, shore"), and ("grape"). The value of the Romanian words of possible pre-Roman origin as a source for the Dacian language is limited because there is no certainty that these are of Dacian origin. Some of them may be actually inherited from Latin (e.g., ("snail") may derive from Latin /proto-Romance *limace; cf. It. , by metathesis of "m" with "l"), and others are clear loanwords from Albanian (e.g. Romanian vatră < Tosk Albanian vatër). The methodology that reconstructs Dacian words using Romanian words of pre-Roman origin that also have cognates in Albanian, but which have not been attested to be Dacian or which have not been documented in Dacian territory is speculatively based on the unproven theory that Dacian constitutes the main linguistic substratum of Romanian and a closely related language to Albanian, a circular method criticised by mainstream historical linguistics.

The substratum words have been used, in some cases, to corroborate Dacian words reconstructed from place- and personal names, e.g., Dacian * = "white" (from personal name Balius), Romanian = "white-haired" However, even in this case, it cannot be determined with certainty whether the Romanian word derives from the presumed Dacian word or from its Old Slavic cognate belu.

Origin

There is scholarly consensus that Dacian was a member of the Indo-European family of languages. These descended, according to the two leading theories of the expansion of IE languages, from a proto-Indo-European (PIE) language that originated in an urheimat ("original homeland") in the southern Ukraine/ Caucasus region (Kurgan hypothesis) or in central Anatolia (Anatolian hypothesis). According to both theories, Indo-European reached the Carpathian region no later than c. 2500 BC.

According to one scenario, proto-Thracian populations emerged during the Bronze Age from the fusion of the indigenous Eneolithic (Chalcolithic) population with the intruders of the transitional Indo-Europeanization Period. From these proto-Thracians, in the Iron Age, developed the Dacians / North Thracians of the Danubian-Carpathian Area on the one hand and the Thracians of the eastern Balkan Peninsula on the other.

According to Georgiev, the Dacian language was spread south of the Danube by tribes from Carpathia, who reached the central Balkans in the period 2000–1000 BC, with further movements (e.g., the Triballi tribe) after 1000 BC, until c. 300 BC.

Linguistic classification

The scantly documented material of Dacian shows that it was an Indo-European language (IE), but it is not sufficient to allow a clear classification of Dacian among the IE branches. As such, there are divergent opinions about its place within the IE family:

Dacian and the extinct Thracian language as members of a single dialect continuum; e.g., and .
Dacian as a language distinct from Thracian but closely related to it, belonging to the same branch of the Indo-European family (a "Thraco-Dacian", or "Daco-Thracian" branch has been theorised by some linguists).
Dacian, Thracian, the Baltic languages (Duridanov also adds Pelasgian) as a distinct branch of Indo-European, e.g., Schall (1974), Duridanov (1976), Radulescu (1987) and Mayer (1996).
Dacian as a language of the "Daco-Moesian" group that would have also included the ancestor of the Albanian language spoken south of the Danube in Upper Moesia. The "Daco-Moesian" branch would have been other than that of Thracian, but closely related to Thracian and distinct from Illyrian. Proposed by Georgiev (1977), this view has not gained wide acceptance among scholars and is rejected by most linguists, who consider that Albanian belongs to the Illyrian branch of IE, either as a direct descendant or as a sister language.

Several linguists classify Dacian as a satem IE language: Russu, Rădulescu, Katičić and Križman. In Crossland's opinion (1982), both Thracian and Dacian feature one of the main satem characteristics, the change of Indo-European *k and *g to s and z. But the other characteristic satem changes are doubtful in Thracian and are not evidenced in Dacian. In any case, the satem/centum distinction, once regarded as a fundamental division between IE languages, is no longer considered as important in historical linguistics by mainstream scholars. It is now recognised that it is only one of many isoglosses in the IE zone; that languages can exhibit both types at the same time, and that these may change over time within a particular language. There is much controversy about the place of Dacian in the IE evolutionary tree. According to a dated view, Dacian derived from a Daco-Thraco-Phrygian (or "Paleo-Balkan") branch of IE. Today, Phrygian is no longer widely seen as linked in this way to Dacian and Thracian.

In contrast, the hypothesis of a Thraco-Dacian or Daco-Thracian branch of IE, indicating a close link between the Thracian and Dacian languages, has numerous adherents, including Russu 1967, Georg Solta 1980, Vraciu 1980, Crossland 1982, Rădulescu 1984, 1987. Mihailov (2008) and Trask 2000. The Daco-Thracian theory is ultimately based on the testimony of several Greco-Roman authors: most notably the Roman imperial-era historian and geographer Strabo, who states that the Dacians, Getae, Mysians and Thracians all spoke the same language. Herodotus states that "the Getae are the bravest and the most just amongst the Thracians", linking the Getae with the Thracians. Some scholars also see support for a close link between the Thracian and Dacian languages in the works of Cassius Dio, Trogus Pompeius, Appian and Pliny the Elder.

But the Daco-Thracian theory has been challenged since the 1960s by the Bulgarian linguist Vladimir I. Georgiev and his followers. Georgiev argues, on phonetic, lexical and toponymic grounds, that Thracian, Dacian and Phrygian were completely different languages, each a separate branch of IE, and that no Daco-Thraco-Phrygian or Daco-Thracian branches of IE ever existed. Georgiev argues that the distance between Dacian and Thracian was approximately the same as that between the Armenian and Persian languages, which are completely different languages. In elaborating the phonology of Dacian, Georgiev uses plant-names attested to in Dioscorides and Pseudo-Apuleius, ascertaining their literal meanings, and hence their etymology, using the Greek translations provided by those authors. The phonology of Dacian produced in this way is very different from that of Thracian; the vowel change IE *o > *a recurs and the k-sounds undergo the changes characteristic of the satem languages. For the phonology of Thracian, Georgiev uses the principle that an intelligible placename in a modern language is likely to be a translation of an ancient name.

Relationship with ancient languages

Thracian

There is general agreement among scholars that Dacian and Thracian were Indo-European languages; however, widely divergent views exist about their relationship:

Dacian was a northern dialect or a slightly distinct variety of the Thracian language. Alternatively, Thracian was a southern dialect of Dacian which developed relatively late. Linguists use the term Daco-Thracian or Thraco-Dacian to denote this presumed Dacian and Thracian common language. On this view, these dialects may have possessed a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Dacian and Thracian were distinct but related languages, descended from a hypothetical Daco-Thracian branch of Indo-European. One suggestion is that the Dacian differentiation from Thracian may have taken place after 1500 BC. In this scenario, the two languages may have possessed only limited mutual intelligibility.
Dacian and Thracian were related, constituting separate branches of IE. However, they shared a large number of words, which were mutual borrowings due to long-term geographical proximity. Nevertheless, they would not have been mutually intelligible.

Georgiev (1977) and Duridanov (1985) argue that the phonetic development from proto-Indo-European of the two languages was clearly divergent.

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Divergent sound-changes in Paleo-Balkan languages according to Georgiev (1977)

! Proto-Indo-European !! Dacian !! Thracian !! Phrygian

|*o

|*e

|*ew

|eu

|*aw

|au

|*r̥, *l̥

|ri

|ur (or), ur (ol)

|al

|*n̥, *m̥

|un

|an

|*b, *d, *g

|b, d, g

|p, t, k

|*p, *t, *k

|p, t, k

|ph, th, kh

|*s

|∅

|*sw

|*sr

|str

|br

Note: Asterisk indicates reconstructed PIE sound. ∅ is a zero symbol (no sound, when the sound has been dropped).

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Divergent sound-changes in Dacian and Thracian according to Duridanov (1985)

! Indo-European !! Dacian !! Thracian

|*b, *d, *g

|b, d, g

|p, t, k

|*p, *t, *k

|p, t, k

|ph, th, kh

|*ē

|ä (a)

|ē

|*e (after consonant)

|*ai

|ai

|*ei

|ei

|*dt (*tt)

|st

Georgiev and Duridanov argue that the phonetic divergences above prove that the Dacian and Thracian (and Phrygian, per Georgiev) languages could not have descended from the same branch of Indo-European, but must have constituted separate, stand-alone branches. However, the validity of this conclusion has been challenged due to a fundamental weakness in the source-material for sound-change reconstruction. Since the ancient Balkan languages never developed their own alphabets, ancient Balkan linguistic elements (mainly placenames and personal names) are known only through their Greek or Latin transcripts. These may not accurately reproduce the indigenous sounds, e.g., Greek and Latin had no dedicated graphic signs for phonemes such as č, ġ, ž, š and others. Thus, if a Thracian or Dacian word contained such a phoneme, a Greek or Latin transcript would not represent it accurately. Because of this, there are divergent and even contradictory assumptions for the phonological structure and development of the Dacian and Thracian languages. This can be seen from the different sound-changes proposed by Georgiev and Duridanov, reproduced above, even though these scholars agree that Thracian and Dacian were different languages. Also, some sound-changes proposed by Georgiev have been disputed, e.g., that IE *T (tenuis) became Thracian TA (tenuis aspiratae), and *M (mediae) = T: it has been argued that in both languages IE *MA (mediae aspiratae) fused into M and that *T remained unchanged. Georgiev's claim that IE *o mutated into a in Thracian, has been disputed by Russu.

A comparison of Georgiev's and Duridanov's reconstructed words with the same meaning in the two languages shows that, although they shared some words, many words were different. However, even if such reconstructions are accepted as valid, an insufficient quantity of words have been reconstructed in each language to establish that they were unrelated.

According to Georgiev (1977), Dacian placenames and personal names are completely different from their Thracian counterparts. However, Tomaschek (1883) and Mateescu (1923) argue that some common elements exist in Dacian and Thracian placenames and personal names, but Polomé considered that research had, by 1982, confirmed Georgiev's claim of a clear onomastic divide between Thrace and Moesia/Dacia.

Georgiev highlighted a striking divergence between placename-suffixes in Dacia/Moesia and Thrace: Daco-Moesian placenames generally carry the suffix -dava (variants: -daba, -deva), meaning "town" or "stronghold". But placenames in Thrace proper, i.e. south of the Balkan mountains commonly end in -para or -pera, meaning "village" or "settlement" (cf Sanskrit pura = "town", from which derives Hindi town-suffix -pur, e.g., Udaipur = "city of Udai"). Map showing -dava/-para divide Georgiev argues that such toponymic divergence renders the notion that Thracian and Dacian were the same language implausible. However, this thesis has been challenged on a number of grounds:

Papazoglu (1978) and Tacheva (1997) reject the argument that such different placename-suffixes imply different languages (although, in general historical linguistics, changes in placename-suffixes are regarded as potentially strong evidence of changes in prevalent language). A possible objection is that, in 2 regions of Thrace, -para is not the standard suffix: in NE Thrace, placenames commonly end in -bria ("town"), while in SE Thrace, -diza/-dizos ("stronghold") is the most common ending. Following Georgiev's logic, this would indicate that these regions spoke a language different from Thracian. It is possible that this was the case: NE Thrace, for example, was a region of intensive Celtic settlement and may, therefore, have retained Celtic speech into Roman imperial times. If, on the other hand, the different endings were due simply to Thracian regional dialectal variations, the same could be true of the dava/para divide.
Papazoglu (1978) and Fisher (2003) point out that two -dava placenames are found in Thrace proper, in contravention of Georgiev's placename divide: Pulpudeva and Desudaba. However, according to Georgiev (1977), east of a line formed by the Nestos and Uskur rivers, the traditional western boundary of Thrace proper, Pulpudeva is the only known -dava-type placename, and Georgiev argues that it is not linguistically significant, as it was an extraneous and late foundation by the Macedonian king Philip II (Philippopolis) and its -dava name a "Daco-Moesian" import.
The dava/para divide appears to break down West of the Nestos-Uskur line, where -dava placenames, including Desudaba, are intermingled with -para names. However, this does not necessarily invalidate Georgiev's thesis, as this region was the border-zone between the Roman provinces of Moesia Superior and Thracia and the mixed placename suffixes may reflect a mixed Thracian/"Daco-Moesian" population.

Georgiev's thesis has by no means achieved general acceptance: the Thraco-Dacian theory retains substantial support among linguists. Crossland (1982) considers that the divergence of a presumed original Thraco-Dacian language into northern and southern groups of dialects is not so significant as to rank them as separate languages. According to Georg Solta (1982), there is no significant difference between Dacian and Thracian. Rădulescu (1984) accepts that Daco-Moesian possesses a certain degree of dialectal individuality, but argues that there is no fundamental separation between Daco-Moesian and Thracian. Renfrew (1990) argues that there is no doubt that Thracian is related to the Dacian which was spoken in modern-day Romania before that area was occupied by the Romans. However, all these assertions are largely speculative, due to the lack of evidence for both languages.

Polomé (1982) considers that the evidence presented by Georgiev and Duridanov, although substantial, is not sufficient to determine whether Daco-Moesian and Thracian were two dialects of the same language or two distinct languages.

Illyrian

Dacian belonged to the Paleo-Balkan group, which also included Illyrian, but whether they had a genetic relationship is uncertain due to the scantly documented material. Some scholars have proposed a Thraco-Illyrian branch, and some even suggest that Illyrian, Dacian and Thracian were three dialects of the same language.

Gothic

There was a well-established tradition in the 4th century that the Getae, believed to be Dacians by mainstream scholarship, and the Gothi were the same people, e.g., Orosius: Getae illi qui et nunc Gothi. This identification, now discredited, was supported by Jacob Grimm. In pursuit of his hypothesis, Grimm proposed many kindred features between the Getae and Germanic tribes.

Relationship with modern languages

Romanian

According to some scholars Dacian constitutes the main source of pre-Romance features in modern Romanian, a neo-Latin (Romance) language, which evolved from eastern Eastern Romance in the period AD 300–600, according to Georgiev. The possible residual influence of Daco-Moesian on modern Romanian is limited to a modest number of words and a few grammatical peculiarities.

As in the case of any Romance language, it is argued that Romanian language derived from Vulgar Latin through a series of internal linguistic changes and because of Dacian or northern Thracian influences on Vulgar Latin in the late Roman era. This influence explains a number of differences between the Romanian-Thracian substrate and the French-Celtic, Spanish-Basque, and Portuguese-Celtic substrates. Romanian has no major dialects, perhaps a reflection of its origin in a small mountain region, which was inaccessible but permitted easy internal communication. The history of Romanian is based on speculation because there are virtually no written records of the area from the time of the withdrawal of the Romans around 300 AD until the end of the barbarian invasions around 1300 AD.

Many scholars, mostly Romanian, have conducted research into a Dacian linguistic substratum for the modern Romanian language. There is still not enough evidence for this. None of the few Dacian words known (mainly plant-names) and none of the Dacian words reconstructed from placenames have specific correspondent words in Romanian (as opposed to general correspondents in several IE languages). DEX doesn't mention any Dacian etymology, just a number of terms of unknown origin. Most of these are assumed by several scholars to be of Dacian origin, but there is no proof that they are. It seems plausible that a few Dacian words may have survived in the speech of the Carpathian inhabitants through successive changes in the region's predominant languages: Dacian/Celtic (to AD 100), Latin/Sarmatian (c. 100–300), Germanic (c. 300–500), Slavic/Turkic (c. 500–1300), up to the Romanian language when the latter became the predominant language in the region.

Substratum of Common Romanian

upright=1.35|right|thumb|Blue = lands conquered by the [[Roman Empire. Red = area populated by Free Dacians. Language map based on the range of Dacian toponyms.]]

thumb | right | alt=Dacia. | Map depicting the territories of the Dacians and the borders of the Roman Empire within present-day Romania.

The Romanian language has been denoted "Daco-Romanian" by some scholars because according to them it derives from late Latin superimposed on a Dacian substratum, and evolved in the Roman colony of Dacia between AD 106 and 275. According to this point of view, Modern Romanian may contain 160–170 words of Dacian origin. By comparison, modern French, according to Bulei, has approximately 180 words of Celtic origin. The Celtic origin of the French substratum is certain, as the Celtic languages are abundantly documented, whereas the Dacian origin of Romanian words is in most cases speculative.

It is also argued that the Dacian language may form the substratum of Common Romanian, which developed from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Balkans north of the Jirecek line, which roughly divides Latin influence from Greek influence. About 300 words in Eastern Romance languages, Daco-Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, may derive from Dacian, and many of these show a satem-reflex. Whether Dacian forms the substratum of Common Romanian is disputed, yet this theory does not rely only on the Romanisation having occurred in Roman Dacia, as Dacian was also spoken in the Roman province of Moesia and northern Dardania. The territory that later became Moesia was conquered by the Romans more than a century before Dacia, and its Latinity is confirmed by Christian sources.

upright=1.35|thumb|The [[Jireček Line, an imaginary line through the ancient Balkans that divided the influences of the Latin (in the north) and Greek (in the south) languages until the 4th century. This line is important in establishing the Romanization area in Balkans]]

Many of the pre-Roman lexical items of Romanian have Albanian parallels, a number of which are however loanwords from Albanian. The words that may be cognates with the Albanian ones, and not loanwords from Albanian, indicate that the substrate language of Romanian may have been on the same IE branch of Albanian. Some scholars speculate they may have been Dacian, but there is no way to prove it.

Albanian

Vladimir I. Georgiev, although accepting an Illyrian component in Albanian, and even not excluding an Illyrian origin of Albanian, proposed as the ancestor of Albanian a language called "Daco-Mysian" by him, considering it a separate language from Thracian. Georgiev maintained that "Daco-Mysian tribes gradually migrated to the northern-central part of the Balkan Peninsula, approximately to Dardania, probably in the second millennium B.C. (or not later than the first half of the first millennium B.C.), and thence they migrated to the areas of present Albania". However, this theory is rejected by most linguists, who consider Albanian a direct descendant of ancient Illyrian. Based on shared innovations between Albanian and Messapic, Eric P. Hamp has argued that Albanian is closely related to Illyrian and not to Thracian or Daco-Moesian, maintaining that it descended from a language that was sibling of Illyrian and that was once closer to the Danube and in contact with Daco-Moesian. Due to the paucity of written evidence, what can be said with certainty in current research is that on the one hand a significant group of shared Indo-European non-Romance cognates between Albanian and Romanian indicates at least contact with the 'Daco-Thraco-Moesian complex', and that on the other hand there is some evidence to argue that Albanian is descended from the 'Illyrian complex'. From a "genealogical standpoint", Messapic is the closest at least partially attested language to Albanian. Hyllested & Joseph (2022) label this Albanian-Messapic branch as Illyric and in agreement with recent bibliography identify Greco-Phrygian as the IE branch closest to the Albanian-Messapic one. These two branches form an areal grouping - which is often called "Balkan IE" - with Armenian.

Baltic languages

There is significant evidence of at least a long-term proximity link, and possibly a genetic link, between Dacian and the modern Baltic languages. The Bulgarian linguist Ivan Duridanov, in his first publication claimed that Thracian and Dacian are genetically linked to the Baltic languages and in the next one he made the following classification:<blockquote>"The Thracian language formed a close group with the Baltic (resp. Balto-Slavic), the Dacian and the "Pelasgian" languages. More distant were its relations with the other Indo-European languages, and especially with Greek, the Italic and Celtic languages, which exhibit only isolated phonetic similarities with Thracian; the Tokharian and the Hittite were also distant."</blockquote>Duridanov's cognates of the reconstructed Dacian words are found mostly in the Baltic languages, followed by Albanian without considering Thracian. Parallels have enabled linguists, using the techniques of comparative linguistics, to decipher the meanings of several Dacian and Thracian placenames with, they claim, a high degree of probability. Of 74 Dacian placenames attested in primary sources and considered by Duridanov, a total of 62 have Baltic cognates, most of which were rated "certain" by Duridanov. Polomé considers that these parallels are unlikely to be coincidence. Duridanov's explanation is that proto-Dacian and proto-Thracian speakers were in close geographical proximity with proto-Baltic speakers for a prolonged period, perhaps during the period 3000–2000 BC. A number of scholars such as the Russian Topоrov have pointed to the many close parallels between Dacian and Thracian placenames and those of the Baltic language-zone – Lithuania, Latvia and in East Prussia (where an extinct but well-documented Baltic language, Old Prussian, was spoken until it was displaced by German during the Middle Ages).

After creating a list of names of rivers and personal names with a high number of parallels, the Romanian linguist Mircea M. Radulescu classified the Daco-Moesian and Thracian as Baltic languages of the south and also proposed such classification for Illyrian. The German linguist Schall also attributed a southern Baltic classification to Dacian. and on both sides of the Carpathians, evidenced by the northern Dacian town Setidava. The first Roman conquest of part of Dacia did not extinguish the language, as Free Dacian tribes may have continued to speak Dacian in the area north-east of the Carpathians as late as the 6th or 7th century AD.

Sound changes from Proto-Indo-European

Phonologically Dacian is a conservative Indo-European (IE) language. From the remaining fragments, the sound changes from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) to Dacian can be grouped as follows:

Short vowels

PIE *a and *o appear as a.
PIE accented *e, appears as ye in open syllable or ya in closed ones. Otherwise, PIE un-accented *e remains e.
PIE *i was preserved in Dacian as i.

Long vowels

PIE *ē and *ā appear as *ā
PIE *ō was preserved as *ō

Diphthongs

PIE *ai was preserved as *ai
PIE *oi appears in Dacian as *ai
PIE *ei evolution is not well reconstructed yet. It appears to be preserved to ei or that already passed to i.
PIE *wa was preserved as *wa.
PIE *wo appears as *wa.
PIE *we was preserved as *we.
PIE *wy appears as *vi.
PIE *aw was preserved as *aw.
PIE *ow appears as *aw.
PIE *ew was preserved as *ew.

Consonants

Like many IE stocks, Dacian merged the two series of voiced stops.

Both *d and *dh became d,
Both *g and *gh became g
Both *b and *bh became b
PIE *ḱ became ts
PIE *ǵ became dz
PIE *kʷ when followed by e, i became t̠ʃ. Otherwise became k. Same fate for PIE cluster *kw.
PIE *gʷ and *gʷh when followed by e or i became d̠ʒ. Otherwise became g. Same fate for PIE cluster *gw
PIE *m, *n, *p, *t, *r, *l were preserved.

Note: In the course of the diachronic development of Dacian, a palatalisation of k and g appears to have occurred before front vowels according to the following process

k > or > , e.g.: *ker(s)na is reflected by Tierna (Tabula Peutingeriana) Dierna (in inscriptions and Ptolemy), *Tsierna in station Tsiernen[sis], AD 157, Zernae (notitia Dignitatum), (colonia) Zernensis (Ulpian)
g > , e.g.: Germisara appears as Γερμιζερα, with the variants Ζερμιζίργα, Ζερμίζιργα

Vocabulary

Place names

Ptolemy gives a list of 43 names of towns in Dacia, out of which arguably 33 were of Dacian origin. Most of the latter included the suffix -dava, meaning settlement or village. But, other Dacian names from his list lack the suffix, for example Zarmisegethusa regia = Zermizirga, and nine other names of Dacian origin seem to have been Latinised.

The Dacian linguistic area is characterised mainly with composite names ending in -dava, or variations such as -deva, -daua, -daba, etc. The settlement names ending in these suffixes are geographically grouped as follows:

In Dacia: Acidava, Argedava, Argidava, Buridava, Cumidava, Dokidaua, Karsidaua, Klepidaua, Markodaua, Netindaua, Patridaua, Pelendova, *Perburidava, Petrodaua, Piroboridaua, Rhamidaua, Rusidava, Sacidaba, Sangidaua, Setidava, Singidaua, Sykidaba, Tamasidaua, Utidaua, Zargidaua, Ziridava, Zucidaua – 26 names altogether.
In Lower Moesia (the present northern Bulgaria) and Scythia Minor (Dobruja): Aedabe, *Buteridava, *Giridava, Dausdavua, Kapidaua, Murideba, Sacidava, Scaidava (Skedeba), Sagadava, Sukidaua (Sucidava) – 10 names in total.
In Upper Moesia (the present districts of Nish, Sofia, and partly Kjustendil): Aiadaba, Bregedaba, Danedebai, Desudaba, Itadeba, Kuimedaba, Zisnudeba – 7 names in total.

Besides these regions, similar village names are found in three other places:

Thermi-daua (Ptolemy), a town in Dalmatia, a Grecised form of *Germidava. This settlement was probably founded by immigrants from Dacia.
Gil-doba—a village in Thrace, of unknown location.
Pulpu-deva in Thrace—today Plovdiv in Bulgaria.

A number of Dacian settlements do not have the -dava ending or variant suffix. Some of these are: Acmonia, Aizis, Amutria, Apulon, Arcina, Arcobadara, Arutela, Berzobis, Brucla, Diacum, Dierna, Dinogetia, Drobeta, Egeta, Genucla, Malva (Romula), Napoca, Oescus, Patruissa, Pinon, Potaissa, Ratiaria, Sarmizegetusa, Tapae, Tibiscum, Tirista, Tsierna, Tyrida, Zaldapa, Zeugma and Zurobara.

Tribal names

In the case of Ptolemy's Dacia, most of the tribal names are similar to those on the list of civitates, with few exceptions.

Plant names

thumb|right|[[Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, Byzantium, 15th century.]]

In ancient literary sources, the Dacian names for a number of medicinal plants and herbs survive in ancient texts, including about 60 plant names in Dioscorides. The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides, of Anazarbus in Asia Minor, wrote the medical textbook De Materia Medica () in the mid-1st century AD. In Wellmann's opinion (1913), accepted by Russu (1967), the Dacian plant names were added in the 3rd century AD from a glossary published by the Greek grammarian Pamphilus of Alexandria (1st century AD). The Dacian glosses were probably added to the Pseudo-Apuleius texts by the 4th century. The mixture of indigenous Dacian, Latin and Greek words in the lists of Dacian plant names may be explained by a linguistic crossing process occurring in that period.

Although many Dacian toponyms have uncertain meanings, they are more reliable as sources of Dacian words than the names of medicinal plants provided by Dioscorides, which have led to speculative identifications: out of 57 plants, 25 identifications may be erroneous, according to Asher & Simpson. According to the Bulgarian linguist Decev, of the 42 supposedly Dacian plant names in Dioscorides only 25 are truly Dacian, while 10 are Latin and 7 Greek. Also, of the 31 "Dacian" plant names recorded by Pseudo-Apuleius, 16 are really Dacian, 9 are Latin and 8 are Greek.

Examples of common Dacian, Latin and Greek words in Pseudo-Apuleius:

Dacian blis and Latin blitum (from Greek bliton for purple amaranth
Dacian amolusta and Campanian amolocia for chamomile
Dacian dracontos and Italic dracontes for rosemary

Reconstruction of Dacian words

Both Georgiev and Duridanov use the comparative linguistic method to decipher ancient Thracian and Dacian names, respectively. Georgiev (1977) argues that the meaning of an ancient placename in an unknown language can be deciphered by comparing it to its successor-names and to cognate placenames and words in other Indo-European languages, both ancient and modern. Georgiev considers decipherment by analysis of root-words alone to be devoid of scientific value. He gives several examples of his methodology, one of which refers to a town and river (a tributary of the Danube) in eastern Romania called Cernavodă, which in Slavic means "black water". The same town in antiquity was known as Ἀξίοπα (Axiopa) or Ἀξιούπολις (Axioupolis) and its river as the Ἀξιός (Axios). The working assumption is that Axiopa meant "black water" in Dacian, on the basis that Cernavodă is probably a calque of the ancient Dacian name. According to Georgiev, the likely IE root-word for Axios is *n̥-ks(e)y-no ("dark, black" cf. Avestan axsaena). On the basis of the known rules of formation of IE composite words, Axiopa would break down as axi = "black" and opa or upa = "water" in Dacian; the -polis element is ignored, as it is a Greek suffix meaning "city". The assumption is then validated by examining cognate placenames. There was another Balkan river also known in antiquity as Axios, whose source was in the Dacian-speaking region of Moesia: its modern Macedonian name is Crna reka (Slavic for "black river"): although it was in Dardania (Rep. of North Macedonia), a mainly Illyrian-speaking region. Georgiev considers this river-name to be of Daco-Moesian origin. The axi element is also validated by the older Greek name for the Black Sea, Ἄξεινος πόντος – Axeinos pontos, later altered to the euphemism Εὔξεινος πόντος Euxeinos pontos meaning "Hospitable sea". The opa/upa element is validated by the Lithuanian cognate upė, meaning "water"). The second component of the town's name *-upolis may be a diminutive of *upa cf. Lithuanian diminutive upelis.

[N.B. This etymology was questioned by Russu: Axiopa, a name attested to only in Procopius' De Aedificiis, may be a corrupted form of Axiopolis. However, even if correct, Russu's objection is irrelevant: it does not affect the interpretation of the axi- element as meaning "black", or the upa as meaning "water" cf. placename Scenopa. Fraser (1959) noted that the root axio that occurs in the place-name Axiopa is also found in Samothrace and in Sparta, where Athena Axiopoina was worshiped. Therefore, he considers this pre-Greek root to be of Thracian origin, meaning "great". However, there is no certainty that the axi element in Greece was of Thracian (as opposed to Greek or other language), or that it meant "great" rather than "black". In any case, this objection may not be relevant, if Thracian was a separate language to Dacian].

Some linguists are skeptical of this reconstruction methodology of Dacian. The phonetic systems of Dacian and Thracian and their evolution are not reconstructed directly from indigenous elements but from their approximative Greek or Latin transcripts. Greek and Latin had no dedicated graphic signs for phonemes such as č, ġ, ž, š and others. Thus, if a Thracian or Dacian word contained such a phoneme, a Greek or Latin transcript would not represent it accurately. The etymologies that are adduced to back up the proposed Dacian and Thracian vowel and consonant changes, used for word reconstruction with the comparative method, are open to divergent interpretations because the material is related to place names, with the exception of Dacian plant names and the limited number of glosses. Because of this, there are divergent and even contradictory assumptions for the phonological structure and development of the Dacian and Thracian languages. It is doubtful that the Dacian phonological system has been accurately reproduced by Greek or Latin transcripts of indigenous lexica.

In the case of personal names, the choice of the etymology is often a matter of compliance with assumed phonological rules. Since the geographical aspect of the occurrence of sound changes (i.e. o > a) within Thracian territory, based on the work of V. Georgiev, began to be emphasised by some researchers, the chronological aspect has been somewhat neglected. There are numerous cases where lack of information has obscured the vocalism of these idioms, generating the most contradictory theories. Today, some 3,000 Thraco-Dacian lexical units are known. In the case of the oscillation *o / *a, the total number of words containing it is about 30, many more than the ones cited by both Georgiev and Russu, and the same explanation is not valid for all of them.

In 2024, Robert Eggers' remake of Nosferatu utilized Dacian in several instances of Count Orlok's dialogue (played by Bill Skarsgård). This was done with the consultation of Romanian screenwriter Florin Lăzărescu.

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

Works cited

Ancient

Modern

; originally Culturpflanzen und Haustiere in ihrem Übergang aus Asien nach Griechenland und Italien sowie das übrige Europa: Historisch-linguistische Skizzen. Berlin: Gebr. Borntraeger, 1885
(online?)

External links

Evidence for an Italic substratum of Romanian, by Keith Andrew Massey

Dacian language

Sources

Origin

Linguistic classification

Relationship with ancient languages

Thracian

Illyrian

Gothic

Relationship with modern languages

Romanian

Substratum of Common Romanian

Albanian

Baltic languages

Sound changes from Proto-Indo-European

Short vowels

Long vowels

Diphthongs

Consonants

Vocabulary

Place names

Tribal names

Plant names

Reconstruction of Dacian words

See also

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

Works cited

Ancient

Modern

Further reading

Ancient

Modern

External links