Festlig Faglig Fredag with Mark Janse

As always, we will meet up from 4 p.m. onwards, and Mark Janse will begin his talk at 4:15 p.m.

The Anatolian and Ionic substrates in Asia Minor Greek

Mark Janse (University of Cambridge)

Abstract

In this talk, I discuss the available evidence of an Anatolian as well as an Ionic substrate in Asia Minor Greek. The hyperonym Asia Minor Greek (AMGr) gained currency through the ground-breaking study of language contact by Thomason and Kaufman (1988), who in turn were inspired by Dawkins’ classic Modern Greek in Asia Minor (1916). In the narrower sense, AMGr includes the archaic peripheral dialects Pontic, Cappadocian and Pharasiot (and perhaps a few other minor dialects), which are situated in the eastern part of Asia Minor and therefore better referred to collectively as East Asia Minor Greek. Their ancestor is called Proto-Cappadocian (Janse) or Proto-Pontic (Kiparsky & Condoravdi).

Cappadocia was the heartland of the Hittite Empire in the second millennium BCE and of the Neo-Hittite kingdom of Tabal in the first half of the first millennium. The Anatolian substrate is still visible in Cappadocian place names such as Τύανα (Luwian Tuwana) and toponyms in ‑(σ)σός such as Τελμησσός and Σινασός (cf. Luwian Parnassa / Greek Παρνασσός). The Hellenisation of Cappadocia began under the reign of the Ariarathid dynasty (331-96 BCE), but the indigenous Cappadocian language continued to be spoken at least until the fourth century CE. The Hellenisation of Pontus started at a much earlier date with the Milesian colonisation of the Black Sea coast in the 8th-7th c. BCE. This accounts for the Ionic substrate in Pontic, which in turn must have reached Cappadocia via ancient trade routes.

After an overview of earlier discussions of the Ionic substrate in Pontic, I present additional evidence for Pontic as well as for Cappadocian and Pharasiot and discuss the various possible explanations. The presence of an Anatolian substrate in Cappadocian is very likely in light of its history. The indigenous Cappadocian language referred to in literary sources up to the 4th c. BCE must have been (Neo‑)Luwian. I present the available evidence of an Anatolian substrate, which may not be conclusive but nevertheless suggestive, and discuss it in the light of Watkins’ hypothesis of an Anatolian linguistic area (sprachbund).