Trojan language

The language spoken by the Trojans in the Iliad is Homeric Greek. However, it is unlikely that this is the language actually spoken by the inhabitants of Troy.

The Anatolian city of Wilusa, identified with the site Troy VIIa, is identified with the Troy of the Greek epics to a greater or lesser degree, depending on judgements regarding the historicity of the Iliad. The language likely to have been prevalent in the historical city is Luwian, although there are no direct records.

The cultural context in which the lost Trojan language existed was described by Jaan Puhvel, "Homer and Hittite" (1991).

Greek epics

The Trojans in the "Iliad" have no difficulty in speaking to their Greek opponents. However, this may merely be evidence that a fictional convention frequently used in narratives in later times had already been adopted by the poet of the "Iliad": for example, Jason finds no language barrier with Medea in Colchis, and Trojan Aeneas converses without difficulty both with Punic Dido and with Latin Turnus.

Greek legend gives further indications on the subject of language at Troy. For one thing, the allies of Troy, listed at length in the Trojan Battle Order which closes book 2 of the "Iliad", are depicted as speaking various languages and thus needing to have orders translated to them by their commanders (2.802-6). Elsewhere in the poem (4.433–38) they are compared to sheep and lambs bleating in a field as they talk together in their different languages. The inference is that, from the Greek point-of-view, the languages of Trojans and their allied neighbors were not as unified as those of the Achaeans.

A second view surfaces in the later "Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite": the goddess Aphrodite, inventing a human history for herself when seducing the Trojan prince Anchises, claims to come from neighbouring Phrygia but to be bilingual, speaking his language as well as Phrygian because she was brought up by a Trojan nurse.

Hilary Mackie has detected in the "Iliad" a consistent differentiation between representations in Greek of Achaean and Trojan speech; [Mackie, "Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad" (Lanham MD: Rowmann & Littlefield) 1996, reviewed by Joshua T. Katz in "Language" 74.2 (1998) pp 408-09.] in simplest terms, Trojans speak poetically, with the aim of avoiding conflict, whereas Achaeans repeatedly engage in public, ritualized abuse that linguists term (from another source) flyting: "Achaeans are proficient at blame, while Trojans perform praise poetry" (Mackie 1998:83).

Greek historiography

Herodotus reported a Lydian assertion of a Lydian origin for the Etruscans, and Virgil and Horace refer poetically to Etruscans as Lydians. [Noted by Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante, "The Etruscan Language: An Introduction" (Manchester University Press) 2002:50.] According to Herodotus these people, led by a Tarquin, abandoned Asia Minor after a series of famines in the eighth century, migrating to Italy at that time. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, citing language and custom like a modern ethnologist, found an autochthonous rather than Lydian origin:

:"And I do not believe either that the Tyrrhenians were a colony of the Lydians; for they do not use the same language as the latter nor can it be alleged that, though they no longer speak a similar tongue they still retain some other indications of their mother country. For they neither worship the same gods as the Lydians, nor make use of similar laws or institutions"

Luwian theory

There was not enough evidence fruitfully to speculate upon the language of Troy until 1995, when a late Hittite seal was found in the excavations at Troy, probably dating from about 1275 BC. Not considered a locally-made object, this item from the Trojan "state chancellery" was inscribed in Luwian and to date provides the "only" archaeological evidence for any language at Troy at this period. It indicates that Luwian was known at Troy, which is not surprising since it was a lingua franca of the Hittite empire, of which Troy was probably in some form of dependency.

Another sphere of research concerns a handful of Trojan personal names mentioned in the "Iliad". Among sixteen recorded names of Priam's relatives, at least nine (including "Anchises" and "Aeneas") are not Greek and may be traced to "pre-Greek Asia Minor". [H. von Kamptz. "Homerische Personennamen". Gottingen, 1982, pp. 380-382.] On this basis Calvert Watkins in 1986 argued that the Trojans had been Luwian-speaking. For instance, the name "Priam" is connected to the Luwian compound "Priimuua", which means "exceptionally courageous". [Starke, Frank. "Troia im Kontext des historisch-politischen und sprachlichen Umfeldes Kleinasiens im 2. Jahrtausend". "Studia Troica" 7 (1997) pp. 447-87.]

Additionally, the Alaksandu treaty describes Mira, Haballa, Seha and Wilusa (usually identified with Troy) as the lands of Arzawa, although this "has no historical or political basis" [Latacz, p. 115.] , suggesting that it was the language that they had in common. Frank Starke of the University of Tübingen concludes that "the certainty is growing that Wilusa/Troy belonged to the greater Luwian-speaking community". [Quoted from Latacz, p. 116.] Joachim Latacz also regards Luwian as the official language of Homeric Troy, but he finds it highly probable that another language was in daily use. [Ibidem.]

References

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*Harvard reference | Surname=Dalby | Given=Andrew | Authorlink=Andrew Dalby | Title=Rediscovering Homer | Publisher=Norton | Place=New York, London | Year=2006 | ISBN=0393057887 , pp. 129-133.
*Harvard reference | Surname=Latacz | Given=Joachim | Authorlink=Joachim Latacz | Title=Troy and Homer: towards a solution of an old mystery | Publisher=Oxford University Press | Place=Oxford | Year=2004 | ISBN=0199263086 , pp. 49-72.
*Ross, Shawn A., "Barbarophonos": Language and Panhellenism in the "Iliad"," "Classical Philology" 100 (2005), pp. 299–316.
*Watkins, Calvert (1986), "The language of the Trojans" in "Troy and the Trojan War: a symposium held at Bryn Mawr College, October 1984" ed. M. J. Mellink. Bryn Mawr.