Everything about Ligurian Language totally explained
» For the Romance language, see Ligurian language (Romance).
The
Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western
Italy and south-eastern
France known as the
Ligures. Very little is known about this language (mainly place names and personal names remain) which is generally believed to have been
Indo-European; it appears to have shared many features with other Indo-European languages, primarily
Celtic (
Gaulish) and
Italic (
Latin and the
Osco-Umbrian languages).
Xavier Delamarre argues that Ligurian was a Celtic language, similar to but not the same as Gaulish. His argument hinges on two points: firstly, the Ligurian place-name
Genua (modern
Genoa, located near a
river mouth) is claimed by Delamarre to derive from
PIE *
genu-, "chin(bone)". Many Indo-European languages use 'mouth' to mean the part of a river which meets the sea or a lake, but it's only in
Celtic that reflexes of PIE *
genu- mean 'mouth'. Besides Genua, which is considered Ligurian (Delamarre 2003, p. 177), this is found also in
Genava (modern
Geneva), which may be
Gaulish. However,
Genua and
Genava may well derive from another PIE root with the form *
genu-, which means "
knee" (so in Pokorny, IEW
(External Link
)).
Delamarre's second point is
Plutarch's mention (Marius 10, 5-6) that during the
Battle of Aquae Sextiae in
102 BC, the
Ambrones (who may have been a Celtic tribe) began to shout
"Ambrones!" as their battle-cry; the Ligurian troops fighting for the
Romans, on hearing this cry, found that it was identical to an ancient name in their country which the Ligurians often used when speaking of their descent (
outôs kata genos onomazousi Ligues), so they returned the shout,
"Ambrones!".
Delamarre points out a risk of circular logic - if it's believed that the Ligurians are non-Celtic, and if many place names and tribal names that classical authors state are Ligurian seem to be Celtic, it's incorrect to discard all the Celtic ones when collecting Ligurian words and to use this edited corpus to demonstrate that Ligurian is non-Celtic or non-Indo-European.
Strabo on the other hand states
"As for the Alps... Many tribes (éthnê) occupy these mountains, all Celtic (Keltikà) except the Ligurians; but while these Ligurians belong to a different people (hetero-ethneis), still they're similar to the Celts in their modes of life (bíois)."
The Ligurian-Celtic question is also discussed by Barruol (1999).
Herodotus (5.9) wrote that
sigunnai meant 'hucksters, peddlers' among the Ligurians who lived above
Massilia.
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