Subproject "Aquitanian and Iberian Onomastics" within HESPERIA

CURRENT PROJECT: LINGUISTIC AND EPIGRAPHICAL STUDIES ON PALAEOHISPANIC LANGUAGES

Currently, the HESPERIA Palaeohispanic Languages Data Bank is maintained and subject to continual updating within the framework of the following coordinated project, financed by the Ministry of the Economy and Science: Palaeohispanic Linguistic and Epigraphic Studies: Cultural and Linguistic Contexts (ELELP II). Chief researcher: Joaquín Gorrochategui. Duration: 2013/01/01 – 2015/12/31.

• Subproject 1:
  Aquitanian and Iberian Onomastics: Linguistic Data and Evaluation.
  Chief researcher: Joaquín Gorrochategui. FFI2012-36069-C03-01.

http://www.jakiunde.org/es/c-miembros_gorrochategui-churruca-joaquin_3.htm

• Subproject 2:
  Nominal Morphology Studies: Palaeohispanic and Ancient Indo-European Languages.
  Chief researcher: Eugenio R. Luján Martínez. FFI2012-36069-C03-02.
• Subproject 3:
  The Birth of Epigraphic Cultures in the Western Mediterranean (II-I c. BCE).
  Chief researcher: Francisco Beltrán Lloris. FFI2012-36069-C03-02.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

1. Firstly, it is proposed to maintain, extend and improve the HESPERIA online Data Bank (http://hesperia.ucm.es), the aim of which, having been created by the team previously, is to become the most comprehensive and most scientifically authorized repertoire of the Palaeohispanic material. Within this three-year project the following will be included: new epigraphic material (with the new material coming, especially, from Catalonia, the Levant and the southern zone), epigraphs transmitted through manuscripts and the indigenous onomastics of the provinces of Aquitania and Narbonensis, which will be added to that of Hispania; work will continue on toponymy folders, and a database of Ancient Hispanic glosses and indigenous words in classical texts will be created. Simultaneously, errors will be corrected, archaeological and chronological data in the folders completed, and the cartographic information and illustrations enhanced. There are plans to inaugurate, in editio minor form, a section on inscriptions in the vernacular languages of the western Mediterranean which will start off with the public epigraphs in the Gaulish language.

2. Taking the Bank as its basis and instrument of research, the project proposes extending our understanding of several linguistic and epigraphic aspects.

Among the former, the semantic map methodology will be applied to researching different morphological and lexical categories in the field of reconstructing Indo-European morphology, and data from Iberian will be contextualised by means of typological comparison with other languages that present similar structural features.

Non-Indo-European (Aquitanian and Iberian) Palaeohispanic onomastics will be examined from similar approaches, in which there will be a special focus on the linguistic and cultural context of the attestation. Before entering into a strictly linguistic study, attention will be paid to the ‘external’ data of the onomastics: its geographical distribution, its connections to and possible overlapping with other neighbouring onomastics, the phenomena of contact and translation, the alignment of some formants with specific categories (e.g., gender), chronology, etc., with all this reflected in the Data Bank and its cartography.

Moreover, the phenomenon of Palaeohispanic epigraphy will be addressed in the context of the crystallization of epigraphic culture in the western Mediterranean (II-I c. BCE). We will therefore begin a widespread comparative study which, for now, will be limited to certain concrete areas: southern Gaul, with several hundred Greek, Gaulish and Iberian inscriptions; North Africa (a selective study of the tophet in Cathage); and Italy, with certain Etruscan as well as all the Osco-Sabellian inscriptions, together with the Latin inscriptions originating in these regions. This will lead to comparative studies among pre-Roman Mediterranean epigraphs.