Thracic language

Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times by the Thracians.

Classification

As an extinct language that has no literature left, there's little known about it, but many words can be found in Greek sources or inscriptions (most of them written with Greek script) on both buildings and coins.

Various relationships were proposed, including with the extinct Dacian language (which is generally considered a northern dialect of Thracian) or the extinct Phrygian language of Anatolia, who may have been Thracians that migrated southeast into Asia Minor. These connections are hard to prove, as all these languages have long been extinct and only a few words from each language are known.

Thracian may be related to the Albanian language, which is widely considered to be related to the extinct Illyrian languages that neighbored the Thracians in ancient times, or the Armenian language, but these links are difficult to prove because of the significant changes in Albanian and Armenian since ancient times.

Geographic distribution

Thracian was spoken in the territory of today's Bulgaria, Southern Romania, FYR Macedonia and Northern Greece.

Vocabulary

The known vocabulary amounts to about 1400 words, most definitely of Indo-European origin, many of them having direct cognates with Slavic languages, Baltic languages or even Germanic languages.