Ethnic Groups and Language Contact in Lycia (I): the ‘Maritime Interface’

Abstract

The paper offers an overview of the ethnolinguistic and sociolinguistic contact in Lycia in the Late Bronze and the Early Iron Age (ca. 1400–330 BC) resulting from the sea-borne connections of the region. Following a brief sketch of the Lycian geography and definition of its ‘ethnocultural interfaces’ (§1), the discussion concentrates in turn on the southern coasts of Caria and Rhodos, also touching upon the question of the ethnic names of the Lycians, Lukkā/Λύκιοι and Trm ̃mile/i (§2), Pamphylia (§3), Rough Cilicia (§4), the Levant (§5) and the Aegean (§6). The section on the Aegean offers a revision of the evidence on Greek-Lycian contacts and suggests a new explanatory scenario accounting for the paradoxical situation where an insignificant number of lexical borrowings contrasts with evidence for a deep structural influence of Greek on Lycian.