Hesperia

Current project: Linguistic and Epigraphical Studies on Palaeohispanic Languages

Currently, the HESPERIA Palaeohispanic Languages Database is maintained and continually updated within the framework of the following coordinated project financed by the Ministry of the Economy and Science: Hesperia: Palaeohispanic Languages, Epigraphy and Onomastics (LEOP). Chief researcher: Joaquín Gorrochategui.

Duration: 1st January 2016 – 31th December 2020

• Subproject 1:
  Indigenous Languages and Naming Practices of Hispania and Gaul.
  Chief researcher: Joaquín Gorrochategui. FFI2015-63981-C3-1-P. 
• Subproject 2: 
  Nominal Morphosyntax Studies: Palaeohispanic and Ancient Indoeuropean Languages
  Chief researcher: Eugenio R. Luján Martínez. FFI2015-63981-C3-2.
• Subproject 3:
  The End of Palaeohispanic Writings
  Chief researcher: Francisco Beltrán Lloris. FFI2015-63981-C3-3.

Description of the project

This inter-university project aims to expand our knowledge of a number of linguistic, epigraphic and onomastic elements of Palaeohispanic languages from a comparative point of view.

As a priority, the project aims to complete the Hesperia online database (http://hesperia.ucm.es), which today constitutes the most exhaustive and authoritative catalogue of Palaeohispanic material, a collection without equal among other ancient epigraphies. In this period, all the epigraphic material currently not available online will be edited. This material corresponds to zones C and D (Catalonia), E (The lower Ebro Valley), F (the Levant), G (southern inscriptions) and J (the southwest Iberian Peninsula), identified by Untermann in the Monumenta Linguarum Hispanicarum (MLH).

Also, the editing of zones B (Narbonensis), K (Celtiberia) and L (Lusitania) will be continued, as well as the Palaeohispanic coin legends and onomastics, which are already available online.

Meanwhile, the definitive Iberian Lexicon will be completed, whose content will be linked via an interactive interface to words and sequences that can be isolated in the database inscriptions.

Using the database as a resource for research, we will deepen our understanding of various linguistic, epigraphic and onomastic elements.

• The study of the nominal morphology of Palaeohispanic languages, combining the analysis of morphological variation with the syntactical study of semantic roles.
• The study of the final phases of the use of Palaeohispanic writing and the related phenomena of bilingualism and substitution by Latin writing and language.
• The edition of relevant texts: the hospitality token from Gracchurris and the Novallas Bronze.
• The creation of the database of indigenous onomastics in Gaul and the configuration of onomastic areas with their main features.