Back اللغة النوميدية Arabic Numidi Catalan Libysche Sprache German Idioma numidio Spanish Libyque French Numidysk Frisian Lingua númida Galician Numidijski jezik Croatian Bahasa Numidia ID Numidian language IG

Numidian language

Numidian
Old Libyan
Numidian stela with Libyc text in the Bardo National Museum
Native toancient Numidia
RegionMainly modern day Algeria, parts of Tunisia and parts of west Libya (as result of Numidian expansion but with Libyan Berber languages)
EthnicityNumidians
ExtinctDeveloped into, or replaced with various modern Berber languages in the 3rd-4th century AD
Afro-Asiatic
Early form
Dialects
  • East-Numidian †
  • West-Numidian †
  • ? Mauretanian †
  • ? Gaetulian †
Libyco-Berber alphabet (Proto-Tifinagh)
Language codes
ISO 639-3nxm
nxm
Glottolognumi1241

Numidian[needs IPA] was a language spoken in ancient Numidia. The script in which it was written, the Libyco-Berber alphabet (from which Tifinagh descended), has been almost fully deciphered and most characters (apart from a few exceptions restricted to specific areas) have known values. Despite this, the language has barely been deciphered and only a few words are known. Libyco-Berber inscriptions are attested from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD. The language is scarcely attested and can be confidently identified only as belonging to the Afroasiatic family, although it was most likely part of the Berber languages, spoken at the start of the breakup of the Proto-Berber language.[1][2][3]

  1. ^ Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.
  2. ^ Güldemann, Tom (10 September 2018). The Languages and Linguistics of Africa. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-042175-0.
  3. ^ Woodard, Roger D. (10 April 2008). The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-46934-0.