Carian language
The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwian subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Carian language was spoken in Caria, a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, by the Carians, a name possibly first mentioned in Hittite sources. Carian is closely related to Lycian and Milyan, and both are closely related to, though not direct descendants of, Luwian. Whether the correspondences between Luwian, Carian, and Lycian are due to direct descent, or are due to dialect geography, is disputed.
Prior to the late 20th century CE the language remained a total mystery even though many characters of the script appeared to be from the Greek alphabet. Using Greek phonetic values of letters investigators of the 19th and 20th centuries were unable to make headway and classified the language as non-Indo-European. Speculations multiplied, none very substantial. Progress finally came as a result of rejecting the presumption of Greek phonetic values.
Phonology
Consonants
In the chart below, the Carian letter is given, followed by the transcription. Where the transcription differs from IPA, the phonetic value is given in brackets. Many Carian phonemes were represented by multiple letter forms in various locations. The Egypto-Carian dialect seems to have preserved semivowels w, j, and ý lost or left unwritten in other varieties. Two Carian letters have unknown phonetic values: ? and ?. The letter ? τ2 may have been equivalent to ? τ.† Phonemes attested in Egypto-Carian only.
Lateral sounds
Across the various sites where inscriptions have been found, the two lateral phonemes /l/ and /λ/ contrast but may be represented by different letters of the Carian script ?/?, ?, and ?/? depending on the location. The letter ? is now seen as an Egyptian variant of ? <ĺ>.Vowels
In the chart below, the Carian letter for each vowel is followed by the conventional transcription with the Greek equivalent in parentheses. An epenthetic schwa to break up clusters may have been unwritten.Morphology
Nominal declension
Carian nouns are inflected for at least three cases: nominative, accusative, and genitive. The dative case is assumed to be present also, based on its relatives and the frequency of dedicatory inscriptions, but its form is quite unclear. Related Anatolian languages also distinguish between animate and inanimate noun genders.Features that help identify the language as Anatolian include the asigmatic nominative but -s for a genitive ending: ???? wśoλ, ????? wśoλ-s. The similarity of the basic vocabulary to other Anatolian languages also confirms this e.g. ??? ted "father"; ?? en "mother". A variety of dative singular endings have been proposed, including zero-marked and -i/-e suffixation. No inanimate stem has been securely identified but the suffix -n may be reconstructed based on the inherited pattern. Alternatively, a zero ending may be derived from the historical *-od. The locative case is attested in one phrase, perhaps originally a clitic derived from the preverb δ "in, into" < PIE *endo.
Examples
| Greek | Transliterated | Carian |
| Ἑκατόμνω "Hecatomnid" | Hekatomnō | ?????? K̂tmñoś |
| Καύνιος | Kaunios | ????? Kbdwn |
| Καῦνος | Kaunos | ???? Kbid |
| Πιγρης | Pigrēs | ????? Pikre |
| Πονυσσωλλος | Ponussōllos | ?????? Pnuśoλ |
| Σαρυσσωλλος | Sarussōllos | ??????? Šaruśoλ |
| Υλιατος | Uliatos | ????? Wliat |
The Athenian Bilingual
Greek: Σῆμα τόδε: Τυρί | Καρὸς τὸ Σκύλ the Carian, the son of Scylax"
The word ??? san is equivalent to τόδε and evidences the Anatolian language [assibilation, parallel to Luwian za-, "this." If ???? śjas is not exactly the same as Σῆμα Sēma it is roughly equivalent.
Language history
The Achaean Greeks arriving in small numbers on the coasts of Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age found them occupied by a population that did not speak Greek and were generally involved in political relationships with the Hittite Empire. After the fall of the latter the region became the target of heavy immigration by Ionian and Dorian Greeks who enhanced Greek settlements and founded or refounded major cities. They assumed for purposes of collaboration new regional names based on their previous locations: Ionia, Doris.The writers born in these new cities reported that the people among whom they had settled were called Carians and spoke a language that was "barbarian", "barbaric" or "barbarian-sounding." No clue has survived from these writings as to what exactly the Greeks might mean by "barbarian." The reportedly Carian names of the Carian cities did not and do not appear to be Greek. Such names as Andanus, Myndus, Bybassia, Larymna, Chysaoris, Alabanda, Plarasa and Iassus were puzzling to the Greeks, some of whom attempted to give etymologies in words they said were Carian. For the most part they still remain a mystery.
Writing disappeared in the Greek Dark Ages but no earlier Carian writing has survived. When inscriptions, some bilingual, began to appear in the 7th century BCE it was already some hundreds of years after the city-naming phase. The earlier Carian may not have been exactly the same.
The local development of Carian excludes some other theories as well: it was not widespread in the Aegean, is not related to Etruscan, was not written in any ancient Aegean scripts, and was not a substrate Aegean language. Its occurrence in various places of Classical Greece is due only to the travel habits of Carians, who apparently became co-travellers of the Ionians. The Carian cemetery of Delos probably represents the pirates mentioned in classical texts. The Carians who fought for Troy were not classical Carians any more than the Greeks there were classical Greeks.
Being penetrated by larger numbers of Greeks and under the domination from time to time of the Ionian League, Caria eventually Hellenized and Carian became a dead language. The interludes under the Persian Empire perhaps served only to delay the process. Hellenization would lead to the extinction of the Carian language in the 1st century BCE or early in the Common Era.