Paleo-Sardinian, also known as Proto-Sardinian or Nuragic, is an extinct language, or perhaps set of languages, spoken on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia by the ancient Sardinian population during the Nuragic era. Starting from the Roman conquest with the establishment of a specific province, a process of language shift took place, wherein Latin came slowly to be the only language spoken by the islanders. Paleo-Sardinian is thought to have left traces in the island's onomastics as well as toponyms, which appear to preserve grammatical suffixes, and a number of words in the modern Sardinian language.
So e.g. sakkáyu, -a, sakkáġġu, -a is in Sardinian a lamb or a goat of a year or a year and a half; brings to mind the Aragonesesegało, Catalansagall, Béarnesesigàlo «goat of the same age», which my colleague Rohlfs combined with the Basque segaila «chèvre d'un an» which seems to be derived from the Basque sekail, segail «svelte», sakaildu «décharner, maigrir». Of course, not everything is equally certain, and the investigation must be continued and expanded. Naturally I am far from wanting to identify Sardinians and Basques, Sardinians and Iberians, I believe that one must always bear in mind that other influences may also have manifested themselves, long-standing Mediterranean influences, Ligurian and perhaps even Alpine influences. Certain coincidences between Sardinian and Albanian are also notable.
—Max Leopold Wagner, Osservazioni sui sostrati etnico-linguistici sardi, 1933[2]
Massimo Pallottino, referring to various authors such as Bertoldi, Terracini and Wagner himself, highlighted the following similarities between Sardinian, Basque and Iberian:
Various Sardinian onomastic elements recall Iberian place names, not only in the roots (which often have a pan-Mediterranean diffusion) but also in the morphological structure of the words, for example: Sardinian: ula-, olla-; Iberian: Ulla; Sardinian: paluca, Iberian: baluca; Sardinian: nora, nurra, Iberian: nurra; Sardinian: ur-pe, Iberian: iturri-pe.
Added to this is a fact that, due to the number of concordances, cannot be considered casual and appears to be of the highest interest: the existence, that is, of specific analogies between elements of the lexical heritage of the Basque language and individual lexical relics or toponymic entries in Sardinia:
The correspondences also extend to formative elements: for example -aga, which in Basque is used for toponyms with a collective meaning (harriaga-pile of stones from harri-stone) and which can explain the Sardinian type nuraghe compared to nurra (also the Iberian toponym Tarracone to the Sardinian maragoni).
—La Sardegna nuragica, Massimo Pallottino, Ilisso edizioni, 1950, p. 96.
Archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu hypotheized that the "Basque-Caucasian" idioms of the Bonnanaro culture replaced the previous languages of "pan-Mediterranean" type spoken by the preceding cultures.[3]
Eduardo Blasco Ferrer concluded that it developed in the island in the Neolithic as a result of prehistoric migration from the Iberian peninsula.[4] The author in his analysis of the Paleo-Sardinian language finds only a few traces of Indo-European influences (*ōsa, *debel- and perhaps *mara, *pal-, *nava, *sala), which were possibly introduced in the Late Chalcolithic through Liguria.[5] Similarities between Paleo-Sardinian and Ancient Ligurian were also noted by Emidio De Felice.[6] According to Blasco Ferrer:
The results thus obtained have shed light on the true nature of the Paleo-Sardinian substratum, that is, of an agglutinative language, which shows clear structural correspondences with the Paleo-Hispanic languages, in particular with the reconstructed Paleo-Basque and with Iberian.[...] The investigation highlights for the first time the stratified components of the pre-Semitic (Phoenician-Punic) Paleo-Sardinian substratum, that is, a primary Paleo-Basque and Iberian component, plus two minor components, one Peri-Indo-European and one Paleo-Indo-European
However for the linguist and glottologist Giulio Paulis, the Basque language is not of great help in the interpretation of the very rich toponymic heritage of Paleo-Sardinian origin.[8]
Bertoldi and Terracini[citation needed] propose that the common suffix -ara, stressed on the antepenult, was a plural marker, and they indicated a connection to Iberian or to the Paleo-Sicilian languages. Terracini claims a similar connection for the suffix -ànarV, -ànnarV, -énnarV, -ònnarV, as in the place name Bonnànnaro. A suffix -ini also seems to be characteristic, as in the place name Barùmini. A suffix or suffixes -arr-, -err-, -orr-, -urr- have been claimed to correspond to the North AfricanNumidia (Terracini), to the Basque-speaking Iberia and Gascony (Wagner, Rohlfs, Blasco Ferrer, Hubschmid), and to southern Italy (Rohlfs).
The non-Latin suffixes -ài, -éi, -òi, -ùi survive in modern place names based on Latin roots. Terracini sees connections to Berber. Bertoldi sees an Anatolian connection in the endings -ài, -asài (similar claims have been made of the Elymians of Sicily). A suffix -aiko is also common in Iberia. The tribal suffix -itani, -etani, as in the Sulcitani, has also been identified as Paleo-Sardinian.
Several linguists, including Bertoldi, Terracini, Wagner and the SwissJohannes Hubschmid,[9] proposed various linguistic layers in prehistoric Sardinia.[6] The oldest, pan-Mediterranean, widespread in the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy, Sardinia and North Africa, a second, Hispano-Caucasian substrate, which would explain the similarities between Basque and Paleo-Sardinian, and, finally, a Ligurian substrate.[6]
Etruscan–Nuragic connection
The linguist Massimo Pittau[10] argues that the Paleo-Sardinian ("Sardian") language and the Etruscan language were closely linked, as he argues that they were both emanations of the Anatolian branch of Indo-European. According to Pittau, the "Nuragics" were a population of Lydian origin who imported their Indo-European language to the island, pushing out the Pre-Indo-European languages spoken by the Pre-Nuragic peoples, but this hypothesis does not enjoy consensus.[11] The Etruscan language is believed to be neither Indo-European, nor related to the Anatolian languages, nor to the Paleo-Sardinian language. The consensus among scholars is that Etruscan is only related to the Rhaetic language spoken in the Alps and to the language attested by a few inscriptions found on the island of Lemnos.[12][13][14]
Some examples of Nuragic names of Indo-European origin might be:[15]
calambusa «sprig of cherry tree with fruits» (Osini), probably Sardian or Nuragic relict [suff. Aegean-Anatolian-ús (s) a], perhaps to compare – not derive – with the Greekkaláme «cane, stem» (Indoeur.).
népide, nébide, nébida, nébidi "fog" (Barbagia and southern Sardinia); Sardian or Nuragic relict, to be compared – not derived – with the Greek néphos «fog» (Indoeur.) (LISPR).
saurra «humidity of the night, frost, dew» (Log.), toponyms Saurrecci (Guspini), Zaurrái (Isili), Aurracci (Ussassai), Urracci (Guspini) (suffixes and accent); Sardian or Nuragic relict, probably to compare – not derive – with a metathesis, with Lat. ros, roris, Lithuanianrasà, ant. Slavicrose, Vedicrasá «dew» and with the Sanskritrásah «humidity» (DELL) and therefore Indo-European. (corrige DILS, LISPR).
Some scholars, attribute to the Etruscan element or, better, to a "Rhaetian-Etruscoid" strand the suffix -èna, that characterizes a series of toponyms attested in central Italy (Tuscany, Umbria, Tuscia and Marsica) and in Veneto passing through Emilia and Romagna. The presence of this suffix is attested, at least since the Middle Ages, also in southern Corsica and in the eastern coast of Sardinia (Gallura, Barbagia, Ogliastra), eg. Arzachèna, Lugulèna etc.[16]
Other hypothesis
Nuragic populations, ancient tribes of Sardinia, speakers of Paleo-Sardinian language or languages are shown in yellow and red.
Archeologist Giovanni Ugas suggested that the three main Nuragic populations (Balares, Corsi and Ilienses) may have had separate origins and so may have spoken different languages:
The Corsi from the north-east might have possibly been of Ligurian origin.
The Iolaei/Ilienses, who inhabited the southern plains and today's Barbagia, likely would have spoken a pre-Indo-European language, possibly similar to Minoan and other languages of that area.[19]
The common subdivision of modern Sardinian into the three dialects of Gallurese, Logudorese and Campidanese might reflect that multilingual substratum.[20] Other Paleo-Sardinian tribes of possible Indo-European stock were the Lucuidonenses from the north of the island, who might have been originally from Provence, where the toponym Lugdunum is attested, and the Siculensi, perhaps related to the Siculi from Sicily, from the Sarrabus region.[21]
Tiscali
According to Guido Borghi, researcher of glottology and linguistics at the University of Genoa, conclusions appear to display the merits of both Proto-Indo-European and pre-Indo-European/non-Indo-European theories in Sardinian toponyms. Proto-Indo-European appellations can be recognized in Paleo-Sardinian, as in the case of the toponym *Thìscali, which could derive from the Proto-Indo-European*Dʱĭhₓ-s-kə̥̥̆ₐ-lĭhₐ with the meaning of "the little (mountain) in the set of the territories which are in plain sight".[22]
↑ Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, ed. 2010. Paleosardo: Le radici linguistiche della Sardegna neolitica (Paleosardo: The Linguistic Roots of Neolithic Sardinian). De Gruyter Mouton
↑ Wallace, Rex E. (2010). "Italy, Languages of". In Gagarin, Michael (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp.97–102. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195170726.001.0001. ISBN978-0-19-517072-6. Etruscan origins lie in the distant past. Despite the claim by Herodotus, who wrote that Etruscans migrated to Italy from Lydia in the eastern Mediterranean, there is no material or linguistic evidence to support this. Etruscan material culture developed in an unbroken chain from Bronze Age antecedents. As for linguistic relationships, Lydian is an Indo-European language. Lemnian, which is attested by a few inscriptions discovered near Kaminia on the island of Lemnos, was a dialect of Etruscan introduced to the island by commercial adventurers. Linguistic similarities connecting Etruscan with Raetic, a language spoken in the sub-Alpine regions of northeastern Italy, further militate against the idea of eastern origins.
Alberto G. Areddu, Le origini albanesi della civiltà in Sardegna, Naples, Grafica Elettronica, 2007.
Blasco-Ferrer, Eduardo (2010). Paleosardo: Le radici linguistiche della Sardegna neolitica[Paleosardo: The Linguistic Roots of Neolithic Sardinian] (in Italian). De Gruyter Mouton.
Johannes Hubschmid, Sardische Studien, Bern, 1953.
Massimo Pittau. La lingua sardiana o dei Protosardi, Cagliari: Ettore Gasperini, 2001.
Giulio Paulis, I nomi di luogo in Sardegna, Sassari, 1987.
Giulio Paulis. "Il paleosardo: retrospettive e prospettive", Aion: Annali del Dipartimento di Studi del Mondo Classico e del Mediterraneo Antico — Sezione linguistica 30, no. 4 (2010): 11-61.
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