Social:Lycian alphabet

Short description: Alphabet used to write the Lycian language

Lycian
Type	Alphabet
Languages	Lycian language
Time period	500-330 BC
Parent systems	Phoenician Greek Lycian
Sister systems	Carian, Lydian, Phrygian
Direction	Left-to-right
ISO 15924	Lyci, 202
Unicode alias	Lycian
Unicode range	U+10280–U+1029F

The Decree of Pixodaros in the Lycian script

The Lycian alphabet was used to write the Lycian language of the Asia Minor region of Lycia. It was an extension of the Greek alphabet, with half a dozen additional letters for sounds not found in Greek. It was largely similar to the Lydian and the Phrygian alphabets.

The alphabet

The Lycian alphabet contains letters for 29 sounds. Some sounds are represented by more than one symbol, which is considered one "letter". There are six vowel letters, one for each of the four oral vowels of Lycian, and separate letters for two of the four nasal vowels. Nine of the Lycian letters do not appear to derive from the Greek alphabet.

The Lycian alphabet

Lycian letter	Transliteration	IPA	Notes
Template:Script/Lycian	a	[a]
Template:Script/Lycian	b	[β]
Template:Script/Lycian	g	[ɣ]
Template:Script/Lycian	d	[ð]
Template:Script/Lycian	i	[i], [ĩ]
Template:Script/Lycian	w	[w]
Template:Script/Lycian	z	[t͡s]
Template:Script/Lycian	h	[h]
Template:Script/Lycian	θ	[θ]
Template:Script/Lycian	j or y	[j]
Template:Script/Lycian	k	[kʲ]	[ɡʲ] after nasals
Template:Script/Lycian	l	[l] and [l̩]~[əl]
Template:Script/Lycian	m	[m]
Template:Script/Lycian	n	[n]
Template:Script/Lycian	u	[u], [ũ]
Template:Script/Lycian	p	[p]	[b] after nasals
Template:Script/Lycian	κ or c	[k]? [kʲ]? [h(e)]
Template:Script/Lycian	r	[r] and [r̩]~[ər]
Template:Script/Lycian	s	[s]
Template:Script/Lycian	t	[t]	[d] after nasals. ñt is [d] as in Template:Script/Lycian / Ñtemuχlida for Greek Δημοκλείδης / Dēmokleídēs.
Template:Script/Lycian	e	[e]
Template:Script/Lycian	ã	[ã]	Template:Script/Lycian / Lusãtra for Greek Λύσανδρος / Lúsandros.
Template:Script/Lycian	ẽ	[ẽ]
Template:Script/Lycian	m̃	[m̩], [əm], [m.]	originally perhaps syllabic [m], later coda [m]
Template:Script/Lycian	ñ	[n̩], [ən], [n.]	originally perhaps syllabic [n], later coda [n]
Template:Script/Lycian	τ	[tʷ]? [t͡ʃ]?
Template:Script/Lycian	q	[k]	[ɡ] after nasals
Template:Script/Lycian	β	[k]? [kʷ]?	voiced after nasals
Template:Script/Lycian	χ	[q]	[ɢ] after nasals

Numbers

Lycian uses the following number symbols: I (vertical stroke) = 1, < ("less than" sign) (or, rarely, L or C or V or Y) = 5, O (circle) = 10; a horizontal stroke — is one half; a symbol somewhat like our letter H may mean 100.

The number 128½ would therefore be expressed as HOO<III—.

Unicode

The Lycian alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2008 with the release of version 5.1. It is encoded in Plane 1 (Supplementary Multilingual Plane).

The Unicode block for Lycian is U+10280–U+1029F:

See also

• Letoon trilingual
• Lycian language

References

• Adiego, I. J. (2007). "Greek and Lycian". in Christidis, A. F.; Arapopoulou, Maria; Chriti, Maria. A History of Ancient Greek From the Beginning to Late Antiquity. Chris Markham (trans.). Cambridge University press. ISBN 978-0-521-83307-3. . Translator Chris Markham.
• Bryce, Trevor R. (1986). The Lycians - Volume I: The Lycians in Literary and Epigraphic Sources. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 87-7289-023-1. 
• Roger D. Woodard, 2007, The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor.

External links

• Everson, Michael (2006-02-05). "N3019R2: Proposal to encode the Lycian and Lydian scripts in the SMP of the UCS". DKUUG Standardization. Danish Unix User Group (DKUUG). http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3019.pdf.