Nuragic language

Nuragian, Palaeosardinian or Old Sardinian (sometimes also improperly called Protosardinian), is a language (or set of languages) indirectly known spoken by the Sardinian Nuragi before the 3rd century BC. C. on the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.

Historical, social and cultural aspects

The first testimonies report that the pre-Roman tribes of Sardinia were divided into various groups, including the Corsicans, the Balaros and the Yoleos or Ilienses (some authors dispute whether these last two are the same ethnic group or if they are different groups), it is unknown if they all spoke the same language, or spoke different languages not mutually intelligible.

Origin

Movements of populations that originated the population of Sardinia about 6000 a. C. From the Iberian Peninsula From the Italian peninsula Africa

The particular history of the island, practically isolated from the mainland for thousands of years, with fluid communications possible only in the last few centuries, has made it possible to keep alive some traces of the native languages spoken on the island, that is, those of the tribes associated with the Nuragic culture among others.

The origins of the language are not known. Any research attempt is faced with the lack of direct documentation of the language. Only from the Middle Ages do written testimonies appear that allow indirect inferences to be made. The origin of the nuraghi cannot therefore be established on a purely linguistic basis, but must be supported by other archaeological and genetic evidence to confirm contacts between Sardinia and other peoples. It is necessary to underline the great differences between the various investigations, which become mutually exclusive.

Works by Areddu

According to Alberto Areddu there are significant relationships, of the few elements that are considered pre-Latin, with some appellations of today's Albania; on this basis A. Areddu brings the conclusion that we should speak of a paleoilirian substratum for the protosardic language, survived especially in the eastern part of the island (the Barbagias and the Ogliastra). According to this scholar, the same place name of Sardinia is answered in the localities Sarda (Illyria) and Serdica (Thrace). The Sardinian city of Sàrdara is also home to an ancient spa, like Serdica in Thrace; all evidence more than enough to speak of an ancient common substratum. Other appropriate connections are:

• Sardinian eni, enis, eniu 'tejo' = Albanian enjë 'better'

• Sardinian Burmese, crum 'Ruta graveolens' (in sardo bliss also sos bermes 'worm herb' = alb. krym 'gusano'

• Sardinian Matricusia 'scoba' = alb. modriqi 'Scoba'
• Sardinian drèddula 'hiedra' = alb. dredhëz 'hiedra'
• Sardinian theraccu 'sirvient, apprentice' = alb. çiraku 'aprendiz' (mostly considered turquoise)
• Sardinian matzunga 'astrace it' (bone and plant) = alb. maçungë 'palo; do it, penis'
• Sardinian rethi 'clematis, zarcillo' = alb. rrypthi, rethe 'Czaro'
• Sardinian tzurunga 'Spider, silk torsion, yarn' = alb. shtellungë "Wolf, shuttle" çurruga 'basura'
• Sardinian sarcone ' animal wrap' = alb. thark 'valla'
• Sardinian Alase 'omb, butcher broom, grass' (in Sardinian: Laruspinosu 'laurel thorny') = alb. halë ' cereals'; conifer needle; black pine', halëz'Arist or remnants of the ear; astilla'
• Sardinian lohiu 'fangoso', topp: Lotzorai, Lothorgo, Loceri, Lotzeri = alb. lloç 'barro', which however is a Slavic loan, or ločka macedonio-búlgaro (also called) 'water pond; mud hole', or, according to Orel, loj 'sebo' from the south-slav
• Sardinian: dròb(b)alu 'intestinal pig' = alb.droboli 'tripas, visceras of all cattle' (which turns out to be a Slavic loan from the drebolija Macedonian (during) 'minutaglia', or drobolina regional Bulgarian (during) 'spiced legs, in slices; stain', but see also toponyms Drobeta, Drubeta
• Sardinian duri 'hard tree stumble with shortened branches that is used as a perch in the tights' = alb. druri 'madera, palo'
• Sardinian urtzula 'clematis', top. Urtzulei = alb. (h)urth, hurdh 'hiedra'
• Sardinian amadrina 'cloud' = alb. drenje, drenushe 'cloud'
• Sardinian heimu sardo 'recor, resentment' = alb. helm 'venene, pain'
• Sardinian tzìrima, tzérrima 'recor, offense' = alb. çirrma 'strident threats, insult', çirrmë "strong shout, loud cry"
• Sardinian càstia 'red to pick up straw' = alb. kashtë 'paja'
• Sardinian thùrgalu 'torrente, raudal' = alb. çurg 'arroyo, stream of water'
• Sardinian thiòccoro, ithiòccoro, iscioccoro 'aspraggine plant' = alb. hith 'ortiga; bitter taste'
• Sardinian early 'large, boria' = alb. madhëria 'la grandeza, l' arrogancia'
• Sardinian theppa 'punta, stony top', top. Zèppara = alb. thep 'punta, top'

Pittau Works

Many interesting studies have been carried out to discover the origin of some word roots that today can be classified as endemic. To begin with, the root sard-, present in many place names and distinctive of ethnic groups, has been linked to the mysterious people of the Shirdana, one of the peoples of the sea that appear in Egyptian inscriptions from the ss. IX and VIII a. c.; originating perhaps in the Middle East or the Mediterranean. Professor Massimo Pittau identifies its origin in Lydia, basing his theory on the remarkable analogy between archaeological and religious elements with the central region of Anatolia. Others emphasize the similarities between the development of ancient costumes and rites between the central part of Sardinia and some areas of the Balkans. This last study cannot be separated, in a study carried out ex post, from the influences of the Caucasian and Balkan migrations that brought various peoples to the Iberian Peninsula.

Pittau's work is also interesting because in a 1984 text he proposes to have found the etymology of many Latin words in Etruscan, after having compared it with the Paleosardic language. The consequence of the study would be that, due to this profound influence of Etruscan in the culture of the island, many of the elements usually considered to be Latin influence could be directly Etruscan. Thus, the Etruscan and the Paleosardo would both come from the Lydian, both being therefore Indo-European peoples from Lydia (whose capital was called Sardes) as indicated by Herodotus. This theory needs to be completed with stronger evidence to gain acceptance in the scientific community.

Classification

Nurgic tribes.

There are no direct inscriptions or epigraphic evidence of the Nuragh language, so any proposal of phylogenetic relationship must be based on indirect evidence. Despite this, various scholars and researchers have advanced hypotheses about the relationship of the nuragus:

• Paleoindoeuropean hypothesis or ilyric: connections to the Balkan area are so wide that this is the hypothesis to take into account

• Pre-indo-European hypothesis, based on toponymic and phytochemical terms of Sardinia. Max Leopold Wagner concludes that the language or languages reflected in those terms do not show kinship with the indo-European. Other authors such as J. Hubschmid and Jürgen Heniz Wolf have suggested that the nurague could be an agglutant language.
• Hypothesis of the Iberian-ligur-libia On the basis of archaeology Giovanni Ugas has conged that the ancient population of Sardinia had diverse origins and therefore it could be conjectured that each of the three main groups spoke a different language:

The balaros could be of proto-Iberian origin

• • Corsos of ligur origin.
  • The iliens of Libyan or Noidic-bereber origin.

According to this hypothesis, the modern differentiation of the Sardinian language in the three logudureses, heures and campidaneses could be related to the diversity of the linguistic substratum. In connection with this proposal the iliens could identify with the sailors-warriors called Shirdana. Although suggesting this proposal and its variants, it does not provide any relevant linguistic evidence to support it.

Linguistic description

Regarding the contacts of the Sardinians with other peoples, it has often been indicated that Paleosardin has coincidences with the Iberian language and the primitive languages of Sicily. Specifically, the suffix -'ara in esdrújula words, for which Bertoldi and Terracini propose that it is a plural mark, could be an indication of this relationship.^{[citation required]}

The same is true for the suffixes -àna, -ànna, -énna, -ònna + -r + "final vowel" (as in the place name Bonnànnaro) according to Terracini. Rohlfs, Butler and Craddock add the suffix -/ini/ (as in the place name Barùmini) as characteristic of paleosardinian. In turn, the suffixes -arr-, -err-, -orr-, -urr- seem to have correspondences in North Africa (Terracini), in Iberia (Blasco Ferrer), in the southern Italy and in Gascony (Rohlfs), with relations with Basque (Wagner, Hubschmid).

Endings in -ài, -éi, -òi, -ùi are common with North African (Terracini) languages. Pittau underlines the fact that many of these endings have a stressed vowel plus a final vowel, a custom that even survived the Roman conquest and Latin in some place names that have a Latin root and paleosardic ending. Some of the place names ending in -ài and -asài are supposed to be of Anatolian origin (Bertoldi). The suffix -aiko, widely used in Iberia and perhaps of Celtic origin, and the ethnonymous suffixes -itani and -etani (as in sulcitani) have been identified as paleosardian elements (Terracini, Ribezzo, Wagner, Hubschmid, Faust and many others).

Around the 3rd century B.C. C. Vulgar Latin began to replace Paleosardo as the main language of Sardinia. Sardinian, a Romance language descended from Latin, is currently spoken on the island. The paleosardo has only been preserved in some features of Sardinian, in the suffixes mentioned, in some place names and plant names.