Iberian language
| Iberian | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Modern Spain and France |
| Region | Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula |
| Extinct | 1st–2nd century AD |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
|
Linguist list
|
xib |
| Glottolog | iber1250 |
The Iberian language was the language of a people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula. The ancient Iberians can be identified as a rather nebulous local culture between the 7th and 1st century BC. The Iberian language, like all the other Paleohispanic languages except Basque, became extinct by the 1st to 2nd centuries AD, after being gradually replaced by Latin.
Iberian is unclassified: while the scripts used to write it have been deciphered to various extents, the language itself remains largely unknown. Links with other languages have been claimed, especially the Basque language, but they have not been clearly demonstrated to the satisfaction of modern scholarship.
The Iberian language was widely spoken along the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula.
In the north, the Iberian language inscriptions reached the south of France up to the Hérault river. Important written remains have been found in Ensérune, between Narbonne and Béziers in France, in an oppidum with mixed Iberian and Celtic elements. The southern limit would be Porcuna, in Jaén (Spain), where splendid sculptures of Iberian riders have been found. Towards inland the exact distribution of the Iberian language inscriptions is uncertain. It seems that the culture reached the interior through the Ebro river (Iberus in Latin) as far as Salduie (Zaragoza) but not farther.
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