The Issue of Deciphering Carian

8/3/2019 The Issue of Deciphering Carian

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THE ISSUE OF DECIPHERING CARIAN

1. The Carian language is a pocket of residual obscurity in the ancient eastern Mediterraneanworld. Most of what is known of Carian has been found either in Egypt, thanks to numerousmercenaries who lived there circa the middle of the first millenium BCE, or in Greek texts.Paradoxically, Caria itself has not revealed much about Carian and even less that can be easilyused to investigate or understand Carian. About 170 Carian inscriptions have been found inEgypt and published, as noted in Adiego (2007:17), and more are known to exist but have notbeen published yet.

On the whole, the assignment of these inscriptions to Carian relies mainly on two features:

(1) They are poorly understood and (2) They are written in a set of alphabets sharing anumber of graphic pecularities, not to say oddities. Lately, claims have been made about analleged definitive decipherment of Carian and about its potentially close affinities with theAnatolian branch of the Indo-European languages. It will be shown that these claims areerroneous. On the whole, Carian is rather hard to read even when one knows what to find, soit is little wonder that this language has kept its secrets for so long.

2. In our opinion, a real decipherment passes several basic criteria with success: (1) It showshow the graphic system works, (2) It provides glosses or translations of the inscriptions. It canbe further added that preferably: (3) The underlying language should be proved to be identical

or close to another known language, (4) The decipherment should help understand how thegraphic system evolves with the passage of time, from one stage to another, or from onelanguage to another. These criteria are met by other decipherments: Egyptian hieroglyphs area complex hyper-alphabetic system that was invented for and used for writing the differentlinguistic synchronies that are ancestor to the Coptic dialects, Linear B is an approximativesyllabic system used to write an archaic dialect of Greek but quite obviously not designed towrite this dialect originally, etc. To put it simple and short, a decipherment is expected toincrease in considerable and exponential proportions the understanding of the language whichis supposed to be deciphered. And the reverse perspective is that a decipherment can hardlysucceed until the underlying language is not identified with some security and certainty.

As regards the decipherment of Carian that we propose, it will be shown that:

(1) Carian, or at least Carian as attested in many of the inscriptions assigned to Carian, isnot a separate language but a dialect of the Hurrian language. It is possible that morethan one language are currently lumped together as Carian. This can be elucidated onlyafter all the inscriptions are fully understood.

(2) The graphic system is a near strictly consonantal system, which only marginally writes(long) vowels. The Carian alphabet is therefore close to the original Semitic prototype.

(3) Most of the phonetic values are those of the original Semitic prototype.

One hindrance in the understanding of Carian is that inscriptions were scribbled rather than

written and they are often somewhat damaged or partially erased. Another hindrance is thatwe cannot fathom the potential distortions introduced by the compilers to the originals.


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3.Adiego (2007:166-204), who claims to have deciphered Carian, divides the history of thedecipherment of Carian in three periods or approaches:

- the semi-syllabic approach, from 1887 to 1949,

- the Greeco-Phoenician alphabetic approach,- the Egyptian approach, since 1972.

The first work on Carian is due to Archibald H. Sayce in 1887. It is quite amazing that thiswork on Carian is the first one and at the same time it is not far from being the only one inmore than 130 years that contains relevant and correct information on Carian. Sayce made thecorrect assumption that the Carian alphabet must share values with the Greek one. He alsomade the exact observation that the letter , which is in fact bta, must be of genitivalcharacter, a typical Hurrian feature (Cf. -wi). Adiego (2007:170) assesses Sayce's contributionas follows: the failure of his decipherment and the dilettantism of many of his proposals.

This sounds awesome and undeservedly severe. The truth is that nearly everything that waswritten in the 130 years after Sayce is close to useless and the only works with practical valueare the compilations of inscriptions.

After Sayce, the ominous Ferdinand Bork managed to spread his influence in one morefield with Carian studies, which lead to the semi-syllabic approach. The Carian alphabet wassupposedly a mixed system with alphabetic and syllabic signs. Bork succeeded in poisoningthe mind of Friedrich, who should nevertheless be remembered as a great scholar. Friedrichtried to simplify and make sense out of Bork's draft. The comments of Adiego (2007:172)about Bork's are worth reading and pondering: His analyses are totally arbitrary. Similarly,the meanings he attributes to the words are capricious. or Needless to say, all these

speculations, based on an invalid decipherment and a nonexistent linguistic family, have beensuperseded. Diakonov (1971:20) likewise states that Bork's grammatical analyzes are onlyinteresting for the historical study of science. It took decades until the 1950ies to get rid ofthat semi-syllabic fancy invented by Bork.

In 1949, a very long inscription was found in Kaunos and with only fewer than 30 signs, itshowed that Carian was written in a strictly alphabetic system. In the following years, most ofthe known inscriptions were collected and published, a necessary prerequisite for progress.The next linguist who tried to decipher Carian was Shevoroshkin. He made it clear that Carianwas indeed alphabetically written but he made no significant advances in the understanding ofCarian in more than thirty years of investigation. Other unlucky contributors were O. Masson,Y. Otpushchikov, P. Meriggi and R. Gusmani.

In 1972, K. Zauzich, an egyptologist, started to investigate bilingual texts in Carian andEgyptian. This method opened the third period of decipherment and was further developed byT. Kowalski in 1972 and then by J. Ray, D. Schrr and I. Adiego, ultimately leading to whatAdiego calls the definitive decipherment of Carian. Unfortunately for Adiego, this methodwas not applied correctly. As will become rapidly clear, Adiego's approach must be discardednearly completely and a fourth period must be added corresponding to a real and definitivedecipherment of the language, which we propose to initiate in the following pages. In allcases, Adiego's claim to have deciphered Carian was fairly strange as he was still aboutcompletely unable to translate any single sentence or inscription written in Carian. Is it nottroublesome or intriguing that a so-called decipherment does not increase the understanding

of the language which is supposed to be deciphered? How comes that the deciphered wordscannot be compared and translated into the Anatolian languages if Carian is a close relative of


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them or even one of them? In fact, Adiego's pseudo-decipherment is a blind and meaninglesstransliteration of the Carian alphabet based on erroneous identifications of the letters. Thesystem of transcription used in Adiego (2007:21) is thoroughly inadequate. Only the firstletter is correct. The rest is worthless. Masson (1978:10) was actually much closer to thetruth.

4. The principle of the Egyptian method is to look for equivalents in the Carian inscriptionsof the Person names which are cited in the Egyptian counterparts of bilingual texts. In theory,this method should lead to a secure identification of the phonetic values of Carian letters. Asimple example will show the wrong and the right way to apply the method. We will dealwith Memphis 7 in Adiego (2007:40):

Memphis 7 (Cf. Masson-Yoyotte 1956)

This inscription is written from right to left on a funerary stela. Adiego reads the texts as

being and makes this comment: The stela provides an Egyptianinscription that also mentions the dead man T3j-p-jm-w son ofT3[...]. The correspondence tothe Carian text is evident: tamou, son oftanai. No less than evident.

A first reaction is to doubt that tamou could be the same as Egyptian T3j-p-jm-w: thisseems to stand for a reconstruction like *[ajpimu]. How comes the -p- has disappeared intamou? Our decipherment is . The name of thedeceased man is not the first word but the last. According to us, the inscription reads:*[taanusau taaniaiwa abimuiwa] I did [the stela] for abimu, the Taaniai [Tanaite].The inscription is probably complete as the last letter is the Dative case-marker. Theconclusion is that the Carian alphabet is a typically consonantic alphabet with a defective

writing of vowels. And another conclusion is that the Ray-Schrr-Adiego system cannot beaccepted but for the letter . Although the Carian alphabet reveals some unexpectedvalues, it remains coherent with the original Phoenician and Greek values. Adiego (2007:194)lists eight words found in bilinguals which are supposed to bolster his own approach. Theonly correct one is the fragmentary equivalence ofone syllable in the fourth one. All the restis quite incredibly wrong... Whatever the opinio communis may be and whatever Melchert orAdiego (2007:4) may think, Carian is certainly not a member of the Anatolian branch of PIE.Carian can be recognized as Hurrian, instantly: -usau P1sg Past, -wa Dative and -iEthnonymic formative. There is no doubt that a correct decipherment makes it crystal clearthat Carian has considerable affinities with Hurrian. It can be noted that cuneiformic inHurrian is rendered as /s/ in the Carian alphabet. This situation is the same as in Hittite.

It can be further noted that more than 10 inscriptions in Abydos contain the name of thegodR *[ria]1 but this has remained completely unnoticed so far. For example:

Abydos 32 (Friedrich 1932 Nr 25)

This inscription, from right to left, contains two instances of the name of the god R

*[ria] on the first line. Adiego (2007:91) disregards the second word-separator in order to1 Cf.Neb-Mat-R Mitanni Letter.


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read a well-known Carian name. But this cleanly separated word is clearly the God R*[r(i)a]. After all, it is little wonder that visitors or pilgrims in the temple of Abydos wrotethe name of the GodR on the walls...

5. In the next section, we will deal with the inscriptions in Abydos. Readers interested to see

the original drawings and ornemental locations of the inscriptions are advised to read Adiego(2007:17-165), who made a very heavy work of realistic compilation. We keep the principleadopted by Adiego of taking the towns as criterion of classification. Our intention is not toduplicate Adiego's (2007) book but to show how the real decipherment of Carian works. Forthat matter, we have not tried to translate all inscriptions included in Adiego (2007), all theless so as many inscriptions are not cited or represented in their original form but in theerroneous transliteration of Adiego, of which only the reading of can be kept.

On the whole, the alphabetic scripts in these Carian inscriptions are instable and severaldifferent varieties of alphabet seem to be coexisting. The instability of the script and thenature of the inscriptions, which are in fact graffiti, increase the difficulty of securely

deciphering most of them. It can nevertheless be noted that the contents of the graffiti is ratherrepetitive and they appear to be different arrangements of the same words in many cases,often dealing with gifts to the god R. Thanks to this feature, some words are frequent andhelp to identify the values of letters in each inscription.

The direction of writing is from right to left unless indicated otherwise.Some inscriptions seem to be written in pure Hurrian rather than Carian: especially

Abydos 7, 27, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39. In this subset of inscriptions with pure Hurrianfeatures, letters A, Y and F are often used to mark vowel length and geminates are rather oftenindicated, especially -nn-. The words are often separated by a vertical line. The letter *[n] sometimes has a particular shape. *[] is often written like a circle . The letters *[g] and *[q] seem to be distinguished. Other inscriptions indicate vowel length: Abydos

8, 9, 10, 18, 19. They nevertheless are not clearly written in Hurrian. *[r] is written inthis latter set of inscriptions.Several groups of inscriptions can be sorted out:

- F is *[w], *[n] is in Abydos 2, 3, 13, 14, 15, 31.- F is *[w], *[n] is in Abydos 1, 11, 23, 25.- inverted values: B is *[w] and F is *[b], *[n] is in Abydos 4, 6.- inverted values: B is *[w] and F is *[b], *[n] is in Abydos 5, 12, 16, 17, 20, 21,

22, 24, 28, 30, 34.- extremely strange script: Abydos 26.

The complexity and variety of the values and shapes of the letters is quite intriguing. If ouranalysis is correct, there may be no fewer than five or six different variants. There is hardlysuch a thing as a standard Carian alphabet in Abydos. The situation is much more complexfrom this respect than what is found in the archaic Greek alphabets. This suggests severalacquisitions of the original Phoenician alphabet by Hurrian- and Carian-speaking people. It isnot possible to state how much is due to dialectal phonetic differences or to divergentalphabetic conventions, not to mention the fact that the people, mainly mercenaries, whowrote these inscriptions may have an imperfect command of writing. It can be noted that theletter *k is not attested: *q is used. This suggests that Carian, and maybe Hurrian, haduvular rather than velar stops. Carian also displays a contrast between three series d~ t ~ ,which cannot be documented or evidenced for Hurrian.


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The Carian alphabet used in Abydos has the following letters and phonetic values:

Labial Dental Affricate Palatal Liquid Velar Glottal

Voiced /b/ OOOO /d/ /dz/ // /l/ VVVV /g/

Voiceless /p/ /t/ /ts/ // /q/ //

Glottalized // /u/VVVV

Voiced /z/ HHHH /r/ // OOOO

Voiceless /s/ /x/

Nasals /m/ /n/

Glides /w/ /y/

Carian Alphabet(s) used in Abydosrepresented in left-to-right direction of reading

6. The corpus of inscriptions of Abydos.


The letters are rather clear and well formed. It reads *[miasiwii]. Theverbal root is mih-2 to be standing in front of a god or lord, and it displays a string ofHurrian suffixes: -h- causative, -wi- Gen., -hi- Adj.. It probably means Reserved to thepriest who introduces the faithful in front of the gods. It can be noted that the letters // H and

/w/ B can hardly be distinguished in most of the inscriptions.

Abydos 2 (Friedrich 1932 Nr 2a)

The last two letters are fused. This inscription is easier to read when compared to Abydos3. It reads *[mn3uji4 qiwiawa5 biwa] Here is all we bring ordeposit for you. The gifts are presumably for the god R. It can be noted that two letters look

more or less the same [] and [y]. The first lengthens the vowel and does not contain //.

Abydos 3 (Friedrich 1932 Nr 2b)

Two letters are half erased. A possible reading is *[maganni6uji7iwuawas8ab9] All the gifts and our things have been taken. It can be noted that the

2Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Wegener (2007: 267).3 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:167), Wegener (2007:265).4

Cf. Laroche (1980:240), Wegener (2007:280).5 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).6 Cf. Laroche (1980:164), Wegener (2007:265).


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first and sixth letter look the same, that is to say like [] H, but none has this value, they standfor [] and [] H.


The inscription is written with inverted values ofB/F. Adiego (2007:94) rejects it from hiscollection. A possible reading is *[iltina10 ulbi11 uijiwu12] Heenters with my other pig, possibly another gift to the temple. There is no clear reason toreject this inscription as being non Carian.


The inscription is written with inverted values ofB/F. The reading is rather clear *[rianiwi jidia13abia14intsa(w?)15] (I ?) made myself poor for thebody and the face of the god R.

Abydos 6 (Friedrich 1932 Nr 3c)

The inscription is written with inverted values ofB/F. The reading is fairly clear *[rianiwi jidia16abia17 (?)] (?) for the body and the face of the god R. It isunclear whether there is any additional letter.


The inscription is written in a peculiar alphabet, which is closer to the standard Greek andPhoenician alphabet than other inscriptions. Moreover the language seems much closer toHurrian than standard Carian is. It has the Erg. case marker - iz and the past ending -ua,normally not present in Carian. It may read *[urbiiz18 qiwisinua19 maganni20 biwa] The foreigner has deposited the gifts for you. Itseems that the /w/ is used to lengthen the vowel. Cf. Abydos 27, 29.

7 Cf. Laroche (1980:240), Wegener (2007:280).8 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:267), Wegener (2007:285).9 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:89), Neu (1988:42), Wegener (2007:258).10 Cf. Catsanicos (1996).11 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:278).12 Cf. Laroche (1980:279).13 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:73), Wegener (2007:257).14 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:34), Wegener (2007:248).15 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Wegener (2007:260).16 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:73), Wegener (2007:257).17

Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:34), Wegener (2007:248).18 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:274), Wegener (2007:288).19 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).


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The inscription may read *[muzri(?)21

mdisi22

] Sublime is theone who makes wise. The letter A is used to express vocalic length.


Abydos 10 (Friedrich 1932 Nr 5c)

These inscriptions are more or less the same as the previous one. The reading is *[muzri(?)23 mdisi24] Sublime is the one who makes wise. The fourth lettermay be /w/ or /r/.


The inscription may read *[miawsa25 q_x_(?)26alib27 niriw28]We stand (giving ?) purified and good. This inscription has nothing to do with personnames. Cf. Abydos 16, 19.


A rather desperate inscription. Maybe from left to right: *[biwa qiwili 29]May it be given to you (?).

20 Cf. Laroche (1980:164), Wegener (2007:265).21 Cf. Laroche (1980:173), Wegener (2007:267).22 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:163), Wegener (2007:266).23 Cf. Laroche (1980:173), Wegener (2007:267).24 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:163), Wegener (2007:266).25 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Wegener (2007: 267).26 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).27

Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Wegener (2007:282).28 Cf. Laroche (1980:185), Wegener (2007:269).29 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).


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The inscription may read *[una30 biwa atunna31 qibasgi(ni?)32]

The offerer comes to you with love. The article does not appear in this inscription but doesin the next.


The inscription may read *[una33 biwua naxa34 qiwasgini35-(?)] The offerer comes to you (and gives ?). Something seems to be missing after .


The inscription may read *[allawi36at(?)37] (for the ?) love of the lady.The last word may also be man: for the lady and for the man (?).


The inscription may read *[maganni38

q_x(?)39

biwu(a)] The gifts(?) for you. The verb is unclear: Cf. Abydos 11, 19: *q x.


The inscription may read *[xummi40 biwa sixu41] The altar has beenpurified (?) for you. Cf. ihali pure.

30 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:282), Neu (1988:45), Wegener (2007:289-290).31 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:2485), Neu (1988:45), Wegener (2007:284).32 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).33 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:282), Neu (1988:45), Wegener (2007:289-290).34 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:175), Neu (1988:44), Wegener (2007:268).35 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).36 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:42), Wegener (2007:246).37 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:2485), Neu (1988:45), Wegener (2007:284).38 Cf. Laroche (1980:164), Wegener (2007:265).39

Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).40 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:113).41 Cf. Laroche (1980:221), Wegener (2007:276).


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The inscription may read *[mn42axi-ni(?)43 qibu(b)44] This the

man gave. The next inscription confirms the reading .


The inscription may read *[rijaniwi yidia(?)45 axi-ni(?)46gibu(b)47] For the body of R the man gave. It makes more sense to interpret as .Note that R is *[rija] not [ria] as in Abydos 5, 6. Adiego (2007:86-7) repeatedly reads thename ofR as being a Person name *tamosi, in his system.


The inscription is unclear and may read *[rijaniwa man 48 q_x_l49biwa (or iwu ?)] For R may this be given for you (?).


The inscription may read *[taija50 niri51 rijaniwi jidia52ai(?)53] beautiful (?) and good is the gift for the body of R.


The first line of the inscription is in a desperate state. The second line may read *[rijaniwa man54 q_x_l55 biwa] For R may this be given for you (?).

42 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:167), Wegener (2007:265).43 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:251), Wegener (2007:282).44 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).45 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:73), Wegener (2007:257).46 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:251), Wegener (2007:282).47 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).48 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:167), Wegener (2007:265).49 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).50 Cf. Laroche (1980:249).51 Cf. Laroche (1980:185), Wegener (2007:269).52

Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:73), Wegener (2007:257).53 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:253), Wegener (2007:284).54 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:167), Wegener (2007:265).


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The inscription may read


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The inscription may read from left to right *[a(?)ri67

biwaqunsmi68] Given to you kneeling. This inscription may be written in Hurrian. Cf. Abydos 7,for the same use of word separators and the peculiar letter. The direction of reading givenin Adiego (2007:90) or Friedrich (1932:94) is wrong in our opinion. The shape of and indicates left to right writing. The shape of is ambiguous as it can be written head-first or head-behind.


A very difficult inscription. It may read from left to right *[paiwu69 nubi70-qurus71 xursi-a72 tal-(usaw?)73] My head ten thousand times forthe hubruhi (I have purified ?). This inscription is most certainly written in Hurrian. Cf.Abydos 7, 27. The inscription seems to reflect an inversion between and . Adiego(2007:90) has cut off the second line for some unknown reason.


The inscription may read from left to right *[talix(?)74iwu(?)75qunts(?)76] The affair has been purified kneeling (?). Adiego (2007:94) holds this inscriptionto be possibly Greek.


A difficult inscription with many gaps. It may read *[rijaniwa

maganni(?)

77

agi(?)

78

] For the god R a beautiful present (?).

66 Cf. Laroche (1980:164), Wegener (2007:265).67 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:52), Neu (1988:41), Wegener (2007:248).68 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:155), Neu (1988:43), Wegener (2007:264).69 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:192), Wegener (2007:270).70 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:187), Neu (1987:44), Wegener (2007:270).71 Cf. Laroche (1987:156), Wegener (2007:264).72 Cf. Laroche (1987:109).73 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Wegener (2007:282).74 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Wegener (2007:282).75

Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:267), Wegener (2007:285).76 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:155), Neu (1988:43), Wegener (2007:264).77 Cf. Laroche (1980:164), Wegener (2007:265).


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A rather long and complex inscription with a peculiar alphabet. The inscription may read*[nau(s?)w79 (?) nisia : ria : naiwaz80 (?) : ria : qipi81iwu82 / (? ?) : nisi su(yi ?)] Wehave put his gain on the ground : (for) the god R : our gift : (for) the god R is given things :(? ?) : all is (his) gain. The form *[nau(s?)w (?)] may be a metathesis of *[nausawa].The second line may read Sublime is the one who makes wise (?). Cf.Abydos 8, 9, 10. The inscription contains twice the name of the god R *[ri a], a feature thathas remained unnoticed. Adiego (2007:91) overruns the second word-separator in order toread a well-known Carian name which actually starts with R *[r(i)a].


A short but uneasy inscription. It may read *[tiaja83] They are numerous (?).


Another short but uneasy inscription. It may read *[tia(?)

84

iwu

85

] Things(that is to say: gifts) are numerous (?).


An inscription with a peculiar alphabet. It may read *[riawimagi : mudzili87] The desire (?) of the god R : may it or he/she be righteous (?).


78 Cf. Laroche (1980:249).79 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:175), Neu (1988:44), Wegener (2007:268).80 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:175), Neu (1988:44), Wegener (2007:268).81 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).82 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:267), Wegener (2007:285).83 Cf. Laroche (1980:260), Wegener (2007:285).84 Cf. Laroche (1980:260), Wegener (2007:285).85

Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:267), Wegener (2007:285).86 Cf. Laroche (1980:164).87 Cf. Laroche (1980:173), Wegener (2007:267).


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A difficult inscription. It may read *[tadaji88 niribilip89] [Done] well

with love (?). This inscription seems to be closer to Hurrian.


This inscription may read *[gibawza90 (?) : nautib91alu92 siib93] We put [our gift], it was there, [then] taken away and entered [the temple].


This inscription may read *[xummi94 tijuauza(?)95] We spoke infront of the altar (?).

Abydos 39 (Murray 1904)

This inscription may read *[kiri96dilla] We are free or *[sari97dilla] Wedesire.

7. Another interesting inscription to look at is the Kaunos bilingual. Of this document,Melchert (2004:65) boldly asserts that:

The new CarianGreek bilingual from Kaunos has shown conclusively the essential validity ofthe RayAdiegoSchrr system, while also confirming the suspicion of local variation in the useof the Carian alphabet.While some rarer signs remain to be elucidated, the question of theCarian alphabet may be viewed as decided.

It will be shown below that this claim is absurd hogwash.

The new bilingual has not led to immediate equally dramatic progress in our grasp of thelanguage.

88 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:2485), Neu (1988:45), Wegener (2007:284).89 Cf. Laroche (1980:185), Wegener (2007:269).90 Cf. Laroche (1980:145), Wegener (2007:263).91 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:175), Neu (1988:44), Wegener (2007:268).92 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Wegener (2007:282).93 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:223), Wegener (2007:276).94 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:113).95

Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:267), Wegener (2007:285).96 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Neu (1988:43), Wegener (2007:263).97 Cf. Catsanicos (1996), Laroche (1980:215), Neu (1988:44), Wegener (2007:275).


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Decipherment without any simultaneously improved understanding of the Carianlanguage is a conspicuous feature of the RayAdiegoSchrr-cum-Melchertsystem.

One reason for this is that the Greek text of the Kaunos Bilingual is a formulaic proxenia decree,while the corresponding Carian is manifestly quite independent in its phrasing of what must be

essentially the same contents.

It will be shown below that the Carian text is very close in its contents to the Greek text.

The Kaunos Bilingual has provided welcome confirmation of the view that Carian is an Indo-European Anatolian language, and indeed, of the western type of Luvian, Lycian, and Lydian.However, one cannot speak of a complete decipherment until there are generally acceptedinterpretations of a substantial body of texts a stage not yet fully attained. This remark applieseven to the new bilingual, as one can easily confirm by reading the competing linguisticanalyses in Blmel, Frei, and Marek 1998. The following very sketchy description of the

language must therefore be taken as highly provisional!

To say the least.So, what is the Kaunos Greek-Carian bilingual? What has been retrieved of the original

document is now three reassembled parts, which contain 26 lines of letters, the first 18 linesare Carian and the last 7 are written in Greek. A number of inferences and descriptive remarkscan be made:

- According to the first lines of the Greek text, which seem to be missing no letters, theCarian text misses about two letters at the end in the 13 first lines.

- The 18

th

line of the Carian text occupied only the left part of the line, which suggests thatthe direction of writing was from left to right.- What is left of the Carian text (18 lines) is much longer than what is left of the Greek part

(7 lines), so that it is unclear whether the Carian and Greek sections originally were astrictly equivalent translation of one another.

The 5 first lines of Greek are rather well-preserved and we will compare them to the 6 firstlines of Carian. One recurrent question about so-called bilinguals is to determine whetherthey are bilingual in the weak or the strong sense: Are they a coarse and remotely allusiveequivalent of one another or are they a close and nearly literal translation of one language intothe other? It will be shown below that the Kaunos bilingual most probably was a bilingual inthe strong sense, contrary to what Melchert (2004) believes: in fact, to judge from the firstlines of each language, the corresponding Carian is manifestly quite equivalentin its phrasingof what must be essentially the same word-for-wordcontents in the Greek part. This is onlyslightly obscured by the fact that the Greek Person names seem to be half-translated intoCarian, instead of being just rephonemicized in Carian.

According to Adiego (2007:154-156), the first lines of Carian are :

1. I VI VI VI V OOOO HHHH [[[[x xx xx xx x]]]]D U H = *diui it is said [that]Translates KA 5.18 EDOE, the first word of the Greek text.

Q U NH = *Qaunihi- (by) the KauniansNB: < I VI VI VI V > is better read < OOOO >. Translates KA 5.18 KAVNOIS


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M Z X = *muzu-xi = [this] has been placedThis refers to the bilingual itself.

[x x] = (probably) *u[rbi] foreignTranslates KA 5.23OENOV

2. VVVV (?)(?)(?)(?) x xx xx xx x X = axi-a for the manContinued translation of KA 5.23OENOV

S M - (R?) L = summi-(r?)ili [and for the] hand-workerTranslates KA 5.19-20HMIO / POU

A T N H = Atenai-xx Athenian(s)Translates KA 5.23 [A]

3. EEEE x xx xx xx xT A N A W S = tnu-awsa we have done [this]

D T A S x x = adars-xx for [our] friendsBoth words translate KA 5.24 [A]IEVEPETA

4. OOOO PPPP OOOO OOOO EEEE x xx xx xx xL U K L S = Li-klesTranslates KA 5.21VIKEOV

A S U T W x x = As-t-w-xx (Hippo-sthenos)Seems to translate KA 5.21IOHNOVThe Carian seems to be a derivative of (Hurrian) au horse.

5. AAAA EEEE PPPP x xx xx xx xN K L W S H = Nikolewas-ii Nikolewa-ianAdiego (2007:155) reads **Nikoklea, but this seems to exist neither in Greek nor Carian.

L U KR S = Li-kras-xxTranslates KA 5.22VIKPA-(T?)

6. OOOO PPPP OOOO OOOO x xx xx xx xL U K L W/S(?)A S = Li-klews

A T N H x x = Atenai-xx Athenian

The Carian first 6 lines translate as: It is declared that by the Qaunians [this] has beenplaced on behalf of the foreign man and the hand-worker, from Athens. We have done [this][for our] friends: Li-kles As-t-w-xx(?), son of Nikolewa, and Li-kras-xx(?) Li-klews,son of Athena[io].

A few letters do not seem to be distinguished as they should:- A [a] (not **[n]) ~ [n] (not **[a]) ~ [k],- A ~ [t] ~ [t],---- [t] ~ or OOOO [l] ~ OOOO []

For example,Athena-(i) is written as < > and < >.The document makes a very clear distinction between the consonant [w] < E > and the long

vowel [] < , PPPP >. Short vowels are conspicuously not indicated, as in Abydos.


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7. As a conclusion of this short sketch, we will reaffirm a few core inferences:

- The definitive RayAdiegoSchrr-cum-Melchertpseudo-decipherment is bogus.- The Carian language is in fact a dialect of Hurrian.- Carian is written in a set of near strictly consonantal alphabets, close to Semitic practices.

We are confident that future research on Carian can only bolster, support and reinforcethese conclusions.

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