Ibère

The Ibère was a paléo-Hispanic Langue spoken by the Ibères on all the peninsular Mediterranean coast. Its extension had as a limit, in north, the Fleuve Herault (France) and in the south did not go beyond Porcuna and Jaén in Andalusia (Spain).

Several recent studies tend to regard this language as heterogeneous, of the kind Lingua franca, rather than the native tongue of a homogeneous group. The language would have extended thanks to the trade, doped by the contact with the Greek counters (Ampurias and Lattara).

It is about certain that Ibère does not belong to the family of the Indo-European Langues, and seems to be an indigenous language: because of many common words he was proposed a bond with the Basque, but this theory is always discussed, and no bond with another group of languages is for the shown moment. This indigenous language is gradually extinct with the length of I^er and II^ème century of our era, being replaced then in a gradual way by the Latin Langue.

Geographical extension

The ibères were spread along the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian peninsula.

Starting with north, in the south of France on the level of the Fleuve Herault one found important vestiges of writing to Ensérune, between Narbonne and Béziers, in an area or mixes with the elements ibères and Celts.

In the south, the limit was Porcuna, in the Province of Jaén, in which one found certain splendid sculptures of jinetes ibères.

Inside the Iberian peninsula the limit is dubious. It seems that there was an extension of the culture ibère along the valley of Ebre, reaching hasta Salduie (Zaragoza).

It is considered that among the people préromains the following was of language ibère: Ausetanos (Vic, Girona), Ilergete S (Lérida and Huesca to the Pyrenees, Indigete S (coast of Gerona), Laietano S (Barcelona), Cossetano S (Tarragona), Ilercavon be (Murcia and Valencia until Tarragona), Edetano S (Valencia, Castellón and Teruel), Contestano S (Valencia, Alicante, Cartagena and Albacete), Bastetano S (Granada, Almería and Murcia) and Oretano S (Jaén, Ciudad Real, Albacete and Cuenca). It is usually considered that the Túrdulo S and Turdetanos were of language tartesio.

Writing

The oldest texts go back to fifth century BC.

The ibère was fixed in writing by means of three different writings:

Greek alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, in which two small texts and some are written anthroponymes, mainly names of the original documents documented in Latin inscriptions.

Alphabet ibère

The alphabet ibère, also called Signario ibérico and which is a semisilabario, is specific to the ibères and is that which was used most usually and during longest. It is clear that its origin is in the Signario tartesio spoken in south-east about the peninsula because those which arrived it called tartesia.

The signario ibère has two alternatives, the Southerner or of south-east (with Jaén and Albacete), whose signs are more similar to the writing tartesia, and that of the North-East or Levantine, more spoken about both and who later was adapted for the Celtibère.

Its most current form, the Levantine, was deciphered in 1922 by Manuel Gómez-Moreno Martínez; although the first correct readings of the Southerner were carried out by Ulrich Schmoll in 1961 and were improved since by other researchers, among whom Jürgen Untermann is distinguished.

Actual position of knowledge

One knows very few sure things on the ibère. The study of the language exceeded its initial phase of transliteration and compilation of materials and is currently in phase of identification of possible grammatical elements in the texts.

The following comments must be regarded as not confirmed assumptions, which will remain thus until the discovery of a long bilingual text making it possible to confirm the deductions.

Phonology and phonetics

Vowel S and Diphthong S

The ibère has 5 vowels, identical to Spanish or the Basque: /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/, with /a/ and /i/ most frequent and /o/ and /u/ the least frequent. Although indices were announced would indicate a nasal vowel (sign), it is considered that pourait being an allophone. It does not seem that there was difference in length in the stamps if one judges some by the grèques transcriptions, it is thus significant that for /e/ ibère in greco-ibère one had used the letter “eta” (E long) and not “epsilon” (E short).

It seems that the diphthongs decreasing with voyelle+voyelle were closed, as testifies to them /ay/ śaitabi SAETABIS, /ey/ neitin NEITINBELES and /aw/ lauŕ- LAURBELES. Untermann observes that the /ui/ group is only in first sillabe.

Semi-consonant S

Consonant S

Stressing

There exist only assumptions on the stressing in ibère. The 2 assumptions presented estimates that there was only one fixed and nonfree stressing.

Luis Silgo Gauche mainly defends the idea of a language with paroxytone, being based mainly on the loss of the weak vowel in beleś > bels and the comparison with the complex aquitano - Basque and the testimony of the Romance languages .

Xaverio Ballester proposes a language with demarcating accent, as well fixes as final (oxytone) basing itself mainly on the linguistic universals and the adaptations Greek ques and Latin be toponyms and anthroponymes ibères.

Anthroponymes

Thanks to the Latin inscription of the bronze of Ascoli, which includes a list of characters ibères who were analyzed by Hugo Schuchardt one could reveal the form of the Anthroponyme S ibères (in fact, this knowledge helped with the deciphering of the writing ibère). The names ibères are formed interchangeable elements, normally formed of 2 syllables, which are written assistant. For example, an element like " iltiŕ" can find itself in the following names: iltiŕaŕker, iltiŕbaś, iltiŕtikeŕ, tursiltiŕ, baiseiltiŕ or bekoniltiŕ. This discovery was a step of giant, since as from this moment one could determine with a certain insurance the names of people in the texts.

The components which can be included/understood in the names are: abaŕ, aibe, wing, Ain, aitu, aiun, aker, Alba, aloŕ, year, anaŕ, aŕbi, aŕki, aŕs, asai, aster, atin, atun, aunin, auŕ, Austin, kiss, balaŕ, balke, bartaś, baś, bastok, bekon, belauŕ, beleś, bels, bucket, beŕ, beri, beŕon, betan, betin, to bikir, bilos, bin, to bir, bitu, biuŕ, bolai, boneś, boŕ, boss, boton, boutin, ekes, ekaŕ, eler, ena, esto, eten, eter, iar, iaun, ibeś, ibeis, ike, ikoŕ, iltiŕ, iltur, inte, iskeŕ, istan, to iunstir, iur, kaisur, kakeŕ, kaltuŕ, kani, kaŕes, kaŕko, katu, keŕe, kibaś, kine, kitaŕ, kon, koŕo, koŕś, kuleś, kurtar, lako, lauŕ, LEIS, lor, lusban, nalbe, neitin, neŕse, born, niś, nios, oŕtin, sakaŕ, sakin, saltu, śani, śar, seken, selki, sike, sili, sine, to sir, situ, soket, sor, sosin, Switzerland, taker, talsku, tan, tanek, taŕ, tarban, taŕtin, taś, tautin, teita, tekeŕ, tibaś, tikeŕ, tikirs, tikis, tileis, tolor, tuitui, tumar, tuŕś, to turkir, tortin, ulti, unin, uŕke, ustain, ḿbaŕ, nḿkei.

In certain cases one can find a name simple, with only one element or follow-up of a suffix: ROOF-BARS, AGER-DO and BIVR-NO on the bronze of Áscoli, neitin with Ullastret and lauŕ-to, bartas-KB or śani-KB in other Iberian texts. More rarely, one announced the presence of infix between the two elements, - I, - ke- or - bo- (Thus Untermann clarifies oto-iltiŕ vis-a-vis oto-ke-iltiŕ or with AEN-I-BELES). In the same way, it announces that in rare cases one finds an element is- or O prefixing a anthronyme (is-betartiker; o-tikiŕtekeŕ; O-ASAI).

In the elements which form the Iberian names, one finds usually models of variation: thus eter/eten/ete with the same variations iltur/iltun/iltu; kere/keres like lako/lakos; or alos/alor/alo like bikis/bikir/biki).

On other occasions one finds assimilations produced by the contact of consonants in limit of compound. Thus, in the Latin inscriptions it appears that in this context n+b decided /m/ (ADIMELS or SOSIMILVS are equivalent to *adin-bels or *sosin-bilus). In an optional way, a ŕ disappears in front of N or L (*biuŕ+lakos > biulakos; *biuŕ+nius > biunius; *sakaŕ+laku > sakalaku).

Notes and references of the article

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