Lusitanian language

Lusitanian (so named after the Lusitani or Lusitanians) was an Indo-European Paleohispanic language. There has been support for either a connection with the ancient Italic languages or Celtic languages. It is known from only six sizeable inscriptions, dated from c. 1 CE, and numerous names of places (toponyms) and of gods (theonyms). The language was spoken in the territory inhabited by Lusitanian tribes, from the Douro to the Tagus rivers, territory that today falls in central Portugal and western Spain.

Celtic theory
Scholars like Untermann (1987) identify toponymic and anthroponymic radicals which are clearly linked to Celtic materials: briga ‘hill, fortification’, bormano ‘thermal’ (Cf. theonym Bormo), karno ‘cairn’, krouk ‘hillock, mound’, crougia ‘monument, stone altar’, etc. Others, like Anderson (1987), point to results of inscriptional comparisons between Lusitania and Gallaecia that they argue show, somewhat indirectly, that Lusitanian and Gallaecian formed a fairly homogeneous linguistic group. Indigenous divine names in Portugal and Galicia frequently revolve around the gods or goddesses Bandu (or Bandi), Cossu, Nabia and Reve:
 * Bandei Brialcacui (Beira-Baixa)
 * Coso Udaviniago (A Coruña)
 * Cosiovi Ascanno (Asturias)
 * deo domeno Cusu Neneoeco (Douro)
 * Reo Paramaeco (Lugo)
 * Reve Laraucu (Ourense)
 * Reve Langanidaeigui (Beira-Baixa)

The Lusitanian and Gallaecian divine name Lucubos, for example, also occurs outside the peninsula, in the plural, in Celtic Helvetia, where the nominative form is Lugoves. Lug was also an Irish god, and the ancient name of Lyon was Lug dunum and may have a connection with the Lusitanian and Gallaecian word, suggesting therefore a north-western Iberian sprachbund with Lusitanian as a dialect, not a language isolate. Prominent linguists such as Ellis Evans believe that Gallaecian-Lusitanian were one same language (not separate languages) of the “P” Celtic variant.

While chronology, migrations and diffusion of Hispanic Indo-European peoples are still far from clear, it has been argued there is a case for assuming a shared Celtic dialect for ancient Portugal and Galicia-Asturias. Linguistic similarities between these Western Iberian Indo-Europeans, the Celtiberians, the Gauls and the Celtic peoples of Great Britain indicate an affiliation in vocabulary and linguistic structure.

Furthermore, scholars such as Koch say there is no unambiguous example of the reflexes of the Indo-European syllabic resonants and the voiced aspirate stops. Additionally, names in the inscriptions can be read as undoubtedly Celtic, such as AMBATVS, CAELOBRIGOI and VENDICVS. Dagmar Wodtko argues that it is hard to identify Lusitanian personal or place-names that are actually not Celtic. These arguments contradict the hypothesis that the p- in PORCOM alone excludes Lusitanian from the Celtic group of pre-Roman languages of Europe and that it can be classed as a Celtic dialect but one that preserved Indo-European (or possibly an already phonetically weakened, written P as an archaism). This is based largely on numerous Celtic personal, deity, and place names.

Lusitanian possibly shows from Indo-European  in PVMPI, pronominal PVPPID from, and PETRANIOI derived from  'four', but that is a feature found in many Indo-European languages from various branches (including P-Celtic/Gaulish, Osco-Umbrian, and partially in Germanic where it subsequently evolved into /f/, but notably not Celtiberian), and by itself, it has no bearing on the question of whether Lusitanian is Celtic. Bua Carballo suggests that pairings on different inscriptions such as Proeneiaeco and Proinei versus Broeneiae, and Lapoena versus Laboena, may cast doubt on the presence of a P sound in Lusitanian.

Para-Celtic theory
Some scholars have proposed that it may be a para-Celtic language, which evolved alongside Celtic or formed a dialect continuum or sprachbund with Tartessian and Gallaecian. This is tied to a theory of an Iberian origin for the Celtic languages. It is also possible that the Q-Celtic languages alone, including Goidelic, originated in western Iberia (a theory that was first put forward by Welsh historian Edward Lhuyd in 1707) or shared a common linguistic ancestor with Lusitanian.

Non-Celtic theory
In general, philologists consider Lusitanian to be an Indo-European language, but not Celtic.

Witczak (1999) is highly critical of the name-correspondences of Lusitanian and Celtic by Anderson (1985) and Untermann (1987), describing them as "unproductive" and agrees with Karl Horst Schmidt that they are insufficient proof of a genetic relationship because they could have come from language contact [with Celtic]. He concludes that Lusitanian is an Indo-European language, likely of a western but non-Celtic branch, as it differs from Celtic speech by some phonological phenomena, e.g. in Lusitanian Indo-European *p is preserved but Indo-European *d is changed into r; Common Celtic, on the contrary, retains Indo-European *d and loses *p.

Villar and Pedrero (2001) propose a connection between Lusitanian and contemporaneous ancient Ligurian, which was spoken mostly in north-west Italy, between the Gaulish and Etruscan sprachraums). There are two major, unresolved lacunae in this hypothesis. Firstly, Ligurian remains unclassified and is usually considered to be either Celtic, or "Para-Celtic", which does not resolve the question of dissimilarities between Lusitanian and canonical Celtic languages (including Iberoceltic). Secondly, the hypothesis is based partly on shared grammatical elements, parallels in theonyms and possible cognate lexemes, between Lusitanian and third languages that have no known connection to Ligurian, such as Umbrian, an Italic language. (Villar and Pedrero report possible cognates including e.g. Lusitanian comaim and Umbrian gomia. ) It is therefore at least as likely that Lusitanian had a closer connection to Italic languages (than it did to Ligurian).

Jordán Colera (2007) does not consider Lusitanian or more broadly Gallo-Lusitanian, as a Celtic corpus, although he claims it has some Celtic linguistic features.

According to Prósper (1999), Lusitanian cannot be considered a Celtic language under existing definitions of linguistic celticity because, along with other non-Celtic features, it retains Indo-European *p in positions where Celtic languages would not, specifically in PORCOM 'pig' and PORGOM. More recently, Prósper (2021) has confirmed her earlier readings of inscriptions with the help of a newly discovered inscription from Plasencia, showing clearly that the morphs of the dative and locative endings definitely separates Lusitanian from Celtic and approaches it to Italic.

Prósper (1999) argues that Lusitanian predates the arrival of Celtic in the Iberian Peninsula and points out that it retains elements of Old European, making its origins possibly even older. This provides some support to the proposals of Mallory and Koch et al., who have postulated that the ancient Lusitanians originated from either Proto-Italic or Proto-Celtic speaking populations who spread from Central Europe into Western Europe after new Yamnaya migrations into the Danube valley, while Proto-Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic may have developed east of the Carpathian Mountains, in present-day Ukraine, moving north and spreading with the Corded Ware culture in Middle Europe (third millennium BCE). Alternatively, a European branch of Indo-European dialects, termed "North-west Indo-European" and associated with the Beaker culture, may have been ancestral to not only Italic and Celtic but also Germanic and Balto-Slavic.

Luján (2019) follows a similar line of thought but places the origin of Lusitanian even earlier. He argues that the evidence shows that Lusitanian must have diverged from the other western Indo-European dialects before the kernel of what would then evolve into the Italic and Celtic language families had formed. This points to Lusitanian being so ancient that it predates both the Celtic and Italic linguistic groups. Contact with subsequent Celtic migrations into the Iberian Peninsula are likely to have led to the linguistic assimilation of the Celtic elements found in the language.

Geographical distribution
Inscriptions have been found Cabeço das Fráguas (in Guarda), in Moledo (Viseu), in Arroyo de la Luz (in Cáceres) and most recently in Ribeira da Venda. Taking into account Lusitanian theonyms, anthroponyms and toponyms, the Lusitanian sphere would include modern northern Portugal and adjacent areas in southern Galicia, with the centre in Serra da Estrela.

The most famous inscriptions are those from Cabeço das Fráguas and Lamas de Moledo in Portugal and Arroyo de la Luz in Spain. Ribeira da Venda is the most recently discovered (2008).

A bilingual Lusitanian–Latin votive inscription is reported to attest the ancient name of Portuguese city of Viseu: Vissaîegobor.

Writing system
All the known inscriptions are written in the Latin alphabet, which was borrowed by bilingual Lusitanians, to write Lusitanian since Lusitanian had no writing system of its own. It is difficult to determine if the letters have a different pronunciation than the Latin values but the frequent alternations of c with g (porcom vs. porgom) and t with d (ifadem vs. ifate), and the frequent loss of g between vowels, points to a lenis pronunciation compared to Latin. In particular, between vowels and after r, b may have represented the sound, and correspondingly g was written for , and d for.

Inscriptions
Lamas de Moledo: "RUFUS ET TIRO SCRIP SERUNT VEAMINICORI DOENTI ANGOM LAMATICOM CROUCEAI MAGA REAICOI PETRANIOI R[?] ADOM PORGOMIOUEA [or ...IOUEA I ] CAELOBRIGOI" Cabeço das Fráguas: "OILAM TREBOPALA INDO PORCOM LAEBO COMAIAM ICONA LOIM INNA OILAM USSEAM TREBARUNE INDI TAUROM IFADEM REUE..." Translation: "A sheep [lamb?] for Trebopala and a pig for Laebo, [a sheep] of the same age for Iccona Loiminna, a one year old sheep for Trebaruna and a fertile bull... for Reve..." Arroyo de la Luz (I & II): "AMBATVS SCRIPSI CARLAE PRAISOM SECIAS ERBA MVITIE AS ARIMO PRAESO NDO SINGEIETO INI AVA INDI VEA VN INDI VEDAGA ROM TEVCAECOM INDI NVRIM INDI VDEVEC RVRSENCO AMPILVA INDI LOEMINA INDI ENV PETANIM INDI AR IMOM SINTAMO M INDI TEVCOM SINTAMO" Arroyo de la Luz (III): "ISACCID·RVETI · PVPPID·CARLAE·EN ETOM·INDI·NA.[ ....]CE·IOM· M·"

Ribeira da Venda: "[- - - - - -] AM•OILAM•ERBAM [---] HARASE•OILA•X•BROENEIAE•H[--] [....]OILA•X•REVE AHARACVI•TAV[---] IFATE•X•BANDI HARACVI AV[---] MVNITIE CARIA CANTIBIDONE•[-- APINVS•VENDICVS•ERIACAINV[S] OVGVI[-]ANI ICCINVI•PANDITI•ATTEDIA•M•TR PVMPI•CANTI•AILATIO" Iberia 300BC-en.svg]]