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Concept
Iberian language
Summary
The Iberian language was the language of an indigenous western European people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the pre-Migration Era (before about 375 AD). An ancient Iberian culture can be identified as existing between the 7th and 1st centuries BC, at least.
Iberian, like all the other Paleohispanic languages except Basque, was extinct by the 1st to 2nd centuries AD. It had been replaced gradually by Latin, following the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Iberian language is unclassified: while the scripts used to write it have been deciphered to various extents, the language itself remains largely unknown. Links with other languages have been suggested, especially the Basque language, based largely on the observed similarities between the numerical systems of the two. In contrast, the Punic language of Carthaginian settlers was Semitic, while Indo-European languages of the peninsula during the Iron Age include the now extinct Celtiberian language, Ionic Greek, and Latin, which formed the basis for modern Iberian Romance languages.
Iberian inscriptions are found along the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula, reaching up to the river Hérault in the south of France. Important written remains have been found in Ensérune, between Narbonne and Béziers in France, in an oppidum with mixed Iberian and Celtic elements. The southern limit would be Porcuna, in Jaén (Spain), where splendid sculptures of Iberian riders have been found. Further inland, the exact distribution of the Iberian language inscriptions is uncertain. It seems that the culture reached the interior through the Ebro river (Iberus in Latin) as far as Salduie, but no further.
Among the pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, the following might have spoken the Iberian language: Ausetani (northeastern Catalonia), Ilergetes (Lleida and Huesca up to the Pyrenees), Indigetes (coast of Girona), Laietani (Barcelona), Cassetani (Tarragona), Ilercavones (Murcia and Levante up to Tarragona), Edetani (Valencia, Castellón and Teruel), Contestani (Valencia, Alicante, Cartagena and Albacete), Bastetani (Granada, Almería and Murcia) and Oretani (Jaén, Ciudad Real, Albacete and Cuenca).
Official source
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