Dacian language

The Dacian language was an Indo-European language spoken by the ancient people of Dacia. It is often considered to have been a northern variant of the Thracian language or closely related to it.

Many of the characteristics of the Dacian language are unknown and disputed. There are almost no written documents in Dacian. What is known of the language derives from:

the toponyms, hydronyms, proper names (including names of kings) and Dacian names of about fifty plants written in Greek and Roman sources (see List of Dacian plant names).
the substratum words found in the current Romanian language, the language that is spoken in almost all the places Dacians lived: there are about 400 words with uncertain origin (like brânză=cheese, balaur=dragon, etc), some of which have cognates in Albanian. These words may have entered from the Dacian language in ancient times, and would be the remains of the Dacian language.
Dacian writings; Decebalus Per Scorilo is the longest inscription known. The Roman poet Ovid learned the Dacian language after being exiled to Tomis (today Constanţa) in Dacia. He composed poems in the language, but they were not preserved.

Geographic distribution

Dacian used to be one of the major languages of South-Eastern Europe, stretching from what is now Eastern Hungary to the Black Sea shore. Based on archaeological findings, the origins of the Dacian culture are believed to be in Moldavia, being identified as an evolution of the Iron Age Basarabi culture.

Sound changes from PIE

Dacian was a Satem language. For details of its sound changes, see Proto-Indo-European to Dacian sound changes.

Affiliation

In the 1950s, the Bulgarian linguist Vladimir Georgiev published his work which demonstrated that the phonology of the Dacian language is close to the phonology of Albanian, further supporting the theory that Dacian was on the same language branch as the Albanian language, a language branch termed Daco-Moesian (or Daco-Mysian), Moesian (or Mysian) being thought of as a transitional dialect between Dacian and Thracian. There are cognates between Daco-Thracian and Albanian which may be evidence of the Daco-Thracian-Albanian language affinity, and many substratum words in Romanian have Albanian cognates.

Extinction

It is unclear exactly when the Dacian language became extinct, or even whether it has a living descendant. The initial Roman conquest of part of Dacia did not put an end to the language, as Free Dacian tribes such as the Carpi may have continued to speak Dacian in Moldavia and adjacent regions as late as the VI or VII century AD, still capable of leaving some influences in the forming Slavic languages.

According to one hypothesis, a branch of Dacian continued as the Albanian language (Hasdeu, 1901); another hypothesis considers Albanian to have split off from Dacian before 300 BC , and Dacian itself became extinct; another hypothesis connects Albanian not with Dacian, but with the Illyrian languages.

Dacian as the substratum of Proto-Romanian

The Dacian language may form the substratum of the Proto-Romanian language, which developed from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Balkans north of the Jirecek line that roughly divides Latin influence from Greek influence.

Whether Dacian in fact forms the substratum of Proto-Romanian is disputed (see Origin of Romanians), yet this theory does not rely on the Romanization having occurred in Dacia, as Dacian was also spoken in Moesia, and as far south as northern Dardania. About 300 words in Eastern Romance (Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian) may derive from Dacian, and many of these show a satem-reflex, as one would expect in Daco-Thracian words (see Eastern Romance substratum).

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