Noric language


The Noric language is an unclassified Continental Celtic language or Germanic language. It is attested in only two fragmentary inscriptions from the Roman province of Noricum, which do not provide enough information for any conclusions about the nature of the language to be drawn. Due to the scanty evidence it is unknown when it became extinct.

Ptuj inscription

The Ptuj inscription, discovered in 1894, is written right to left in a northern Italic alphabet and reads:
This is interpreted as two personal names: Artebudz of Brogduos. The name Artebudz may mean "bear penis", while Brogduos may contain the element brog-, mrog- "country". Alternatively, the inscription may be interpreted as Artebudz for Brogdos, with the second name in the dative case.

Grafenstein inscription

The Grafenstein inscription, on a tile from the 2nd century AD that was discovered in a gravel pit in 1977, is incomplete, but the extant part has been transcribed as follows:
Here, Moge seems to be a personal name or an abbreviation of one, P· II- lav a Latin abbreviation indicating a weight, ne sadiíes a verbal form possibly meaning "you do not set", ollo so perhaps "this amount", and Lugnu another personal name. The text may therefore be a record of some sort of financial transaction.
Other readings of the inscription have also been proposed, including:
and