Modern consensus views Greek as the closest relative of Phrygian, a position that is supported by Brixhe, Neumann, Matzinger, Woodhouse, Ligorio, Lubotsky, and Obrador-Cursach. Furthermore, out of 36 isoglosses collected by Obrador Cursach, Phrygian shared 34 with Greek, with 22 being exclusive between them. The last 50 years of Phrygian scholarship developed a hypothesis that proposes a proto-Graeco-Phrygian stage out of which Greek and Phrygian originated, and if Phrygian was more sufficiently attested, that stage could perhaps be reconstructed.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Evidence
The linguist Claude Brixhe points to the following features Greek and Phrygian are known to have in common and in common with no other language:[1]
a certain class of masculine nouns in the nominative singular ending in -s
Obrador-Cursach (2019) has presented further phonetic, morphological and lexical evidence supporting a close relation between Greek and Phrygian, as seen in the following tables that compare the different isoglosses between Phrygian, Greek, Armenian, Albanian and Indo-Iranian.[7]
^Woodhouse 2009, p. 171:This question is of course only just separable from the question of which languages within Indo-European are most closely related to Phrygian, which has also been hotly debated. A turning point in this debate was Kortlandt's (1988) demonstration on the basis of shared sound changes that Thraco-Armenian had separated from Phrygian and other originally Balkan languages at an early stage. The consensus has now returned to regarding Greek as the closest relative.
^Ligorio & Lubotsky (2018), p. 1816: "Phrygian is most closely related to Greek. The two languages share a few unique innovations [...] It is therefore very likely that both languages emerged from a single language, which was spoken in the Balkans at the end of the third millennium BCE.
^Obrador-Cursach 2018, p. 102:Furthermore, if Phrygian were not so-poorly attested perhaps we could reconstruct a Proto-Greco-Phrygian stage of both languages.
^Obrador-Cursach 2020, pp. 238–239:To the best of our current knowledge, Phrygian was closely related to Greek. This affirmation is consistent with the vision offered by Neumann (1988: 23), Brixhe (2006) and Ligorio and Lubotsky (2018: 1816) and with many observations given by ancient authors. Both languages share 34 of the 36 features considered in this paper, some of them of great significance:…The available data suggest that Phrygian and Greek coexisted broadly from pre-historic to historic times, and both belong to a common linguistic area (Brixhe 2006: 39–44).
^Obrador-Cursach 2020, p. 243:With the current state of our knowledge, we can affirm that Phrygian is closely related to Greek. This is not a surprising conclusion: ancient sources and modern scholars agree that Phrygians did not live far from Greece in pre-historic times. Moreover, the last half century of scientific study of Phrygian has approached both languages and developed the hypothesis of a Proto-Greco-Phrygian language, to the detriment to other theories like Phrygio-Armenian or Thraco-Phrygian.
Obrador-Cursach, Bartomeu (2018). Lexicon of the Phrygian Inscriptions(PDF). University of Barcelona – Faculty of Philology – Department of Classical, Romance and Semitic Philology.
Brixhe, Claude (2002). "Interactions between Greek and Phrygian under the Roman Empire". In Adams, J. N.; Janse, Mark (eds.). Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Text. Oxford University Press. pp. 246–266.
Fortson, Benjamin W. (2011). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Blackwell. pp. 203, 252.
Masson, Olivier (1991). "Anatolian Languages". In Boardman, John; Edwards, I. E. S. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 668–9.
Woudhuizen, Fred C. (2008–2009). "Phrygian & Greek"(PDF). Talanta, Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society. Vol. 40–41. pp. 181–217. Archived from the original(PDF) on 7 April 2014.
