The book examines the languages spoken on the island of Cyprus from the Middle Bronze Age to the beginning of the Hellenistic period, through their epigraphic documentation; these are the languages known as Cypro-Minoan (CM), Eteocypriot (EC) and Phoenician (Ph). Greek, the language with which all the above come into contact, is not the object of a specific analysis, except for what concerns the interactions with CM, EC and Ph; this exclusion is motivated by the recent publication of the two-volume work by M. Egetmeyer (Le dialecte grec ancien de Chypre [2010]), that is a reference point for the analysis of the Greek dialect of Cyprus.
The work investigates epigraphic corpuses of limited extent, of which only one was used for writing a known language, that is Phoenician. In the other cases the situation is more complex: in the case of CM, the number of languages noted is still the subject of debate; furthermore, both in this case and in the case of EC, the languages noted lack plausible comparison with the languages noted in the Mediterranean basin; in light of these considerations it could appear inappropriate to speak of a ‘linguistic history’ of Cyprus, as the title suggests.
A twofold methodological approach characterises this work; first every language, or rather the whole epigraphic body, is analysed in its archaeological and cultural context: this is a requirement that for the Cyprus of the Bronze Age was positively investigated by J.S. Smith (Script and seal use on Cyprus [2002]) and by S. Ferrara (Cypro-Minoan Inscriptions Volume 1: Analysis [2012]).
S.'s second objective is to capture the relationships and interactions between the three languages/scripts and between these and the Greek Cypriot dialect in the more or less lengthy coexistence between the different ethnic-linguistic groups; the analysis approach, nowadays known as ‘areal linguistics’ (P. Muysken [ed.], From Linguistics Areas to areal Linguistics [2008]), has shown a wealth of results in the investigation of the forms of contact and interference from both modern languages and languages known only through written documentation. Therefore it is surprising that we do not find any reference in the book to this methodological perspective.
The first chapter is dedicated to CM, and opens with an accurate description of the epigraphic corpus and its chronological and geographic settings; this enables S. to assume an original position with respect to the still open debate on the singularity of script (as claimed by E. Masson and, albeit with greater caution, by J.-P. Olivier, HoChyMin) or on the need to consider the entire corpus unitarily (T.G. Palaima, S. Ferrara). S. instead analyses the internal uniformity of the documentation, coming to the conclusion that CM2 and CM3 may be characterised by positive arguments such as uniform subsystems, while CM1 remains a convenient denomination that embraces everything that does not fit in the other two groups of texts. In order to find clues of linguistic nature, the corpus is then studied on various levels, both with internal, statistical and descriptive methodology, and in comparison with the other Aegean scripts/languages (Linear A [LA], Linear B [LB], CCS); unfortunately, very few useful indications come from the lexicon and from the onomastics: none of the ‘words’ isolated with different criteria in each of the subsystems are found also in the others; no indigenous name or that of an expected foreigner (a traditionally useful instrument to decipher ancient scripts) is identifiable in a direct way. More interesting elements come from phonetics, starting from the identification of the phonetic values: if a comparison with the LA/LB and with the CCS does not add much to the ten identifications already suggested, something more comes from the combinatorial analysis, conducted by analysing the frequency with which the graphemes appear in different positions in a word. S. starts from the principle that, because this is a syllabic script, an initial high frequency represents a suggestion that the grapheme indicates an isolated vowel; so graphemes 038, 081, 102 and 104 are identified as the best candidates for indicating the vowels, the latter two of which are identifiable as /a/ and /i/ following a comparison with the other Aegean scripts. This result could represent a starting point for a typological consideration: if the language noted by CM distinguishes five different vowels of which /a, e, i, o/ are positively established (/a/e/i/ isolated, /e/ obtainable from 044/se, /o/ from 005/r/lo and 008/t/do), one would expect the presence of /u/, which would strengthen the possible interpretation of 046 as /Cu/. Furthermore, if this was a language with a five vowel phonological system, the chances of a comparison with Semitic type languages would be reduced.
On a morphological level, using a methodology already adopted by J.-P. Olivier and Y. Duhoux for LA, S. identifies a series of ‘suffixes’ in CM1, CM2 and CM3, only one of which (-023) appears in two different subgroups (CM1 and CM3); the interesting aspect is that the morphological variations identified are of the same nature in the three samples examined, in spite of the lesser uniformity of CM1: this could represent an important clue with regard to the question of the unitary character or otherwise of the noted script and language.
The second chapter is dedicated to EC, the epigraphic corpus of which, written in CSS, is perfectly legible, although we lack any comparison with known languages, as well as any convincing decipherment: all aspects that confirm the analysis conducted by S. with considerable evidence. Based on these characteristics, S. collects the little more than 100 complete words of the EC, identifying: first the meaning, in only few cases certain, especially starting from Amathonte's bilingual (EC1); second the basic morphological characteristics, which would seem compatible with an inflected language. The phonology would reveal the vitality of /w/ and a high frequency of /u/ compared with the Greek /o/; this last factor could resemble the same relationship between LA and LB, of which we have been aware for some time. The interesting reference to the problems of syllabification identifiable in the corpus could be developed taking into account considerations of phonological naturalness of the syllabic structure, as well as of the interaction with morphological factors (cf. aratowanakasokoo, pp. 144–6). The chapter ends with a section dedicated to the analysis of Amathonte's epigraphic landscape that reconstructs the different weight and value that EC gains in the city compared with Phoenician and Greek.
The third chapter is dedicated to Phoenician epigraphy in Cyprus, of which we lack an updated edition and an adequate linguistic analysis; the reconstruction of the geographic and chronological coordinates of the corpus enables S. to demonstrate that, even in the cases of a greater concentration of the Phoenician element, this does not contrast with the Greek component, but reveals instead a situation of reciprocal exchange and profound cultural integration (pp. 184–8). As there are insufficient elements to support the theory that Cypriot Phoenician is a distinct dialect (pp. 188–201), S. concentrates her attention on the analysis of the bilinguals in which the Phoenician merges with Greek; it is interesting to note the products of the contact between the two languages, particularly in onomastics (pp. 218–25), with expressions that range from loans to calques. There emerge, also, cases of real code-mixing, like the names of the gates (pylai arôn esba and pylai esakkei(m)), found in an ostrakon of Idalion (c. 300 b.c.).
The general conclusion is that coexistence and the contact between different languages is a trait that characterises Cyprus from the Archaic period all the way to the Hellenistic period, and that is revealed with particular emphasis between the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.
The book offers a comprehensive analysis of the epigraphic documentation of Cyprus, written in three different languages and scripts, which has to date rarely been the subject of a comprehensive study. This justifies the fact that the work, although it does not offer substantial progress in the fields analysed, presents a balanced synthesis of the findings and of the open questions. S.'s work forms the basis essential for integrating within this field of research the principles of areal linguistics with the identity value implicated with the selection of scripts/languages in contact situations.
