THE THRACIANS AND THE WRITING

Abstract

The article offers a summary and analysis of the available texts written in the Thracian language, which became especially necessary after the breakthrough finding in 1988 of new written monuments in Thracian in the settlement of Zone on the Aegean coast in Greece. Contrary to popular belief that the Thracians were an illiterate people, it can be concluded that by the 4th century BC there were three centers of writing activity in the Thracian lands: Northeastern Bulgaria (the inscription from the village of Kjolmen), the Upper Thracian plain (the inscription on the ring from the village of Ezerovo and the inscriptions on artifacts from the mounds of Duvanlii), and the Aegean coast (inscriptions from the settlements of Zone and Maroneia and from the island of Samothrace). The author examines the written evidence of the Thracian language in the context of the neighboring Greek alphabets and concludes that the existence of a local alphabet used by the Thracian population before the arrival of the Greek colonists on the Aegean coast can be postulated. Another focus of the paper is related to understanding the reasons for the gradual demise of the practice of writing in the Thracian language in the context of the emergence of the Greek local alphabets and the cultural and political reality of contacts with the Greek-speaking population and education, without neglecting the sociolinguistic aspects of the problem.