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Description:
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Before starting reading Thracian Language and Greek and Thracian Epigraphy,
we should keep in mind that we will be facing a situation that is extremely
complex. There exists a methodological problem, originating in the past,
which caused various misunderstandings. It is due to the volume of
different entries assembled in the goal to compose a thesaurus of the
Thracian language. Somehow, over the years during the last two centuries,
there was a whole set of methods applied that were not in accordance to the
progress made by linguistics. For example, the choice made in assembling
the two main corpora so far, that of Tomaschek and Detschew, present data
from literary and epigraphic sources. These data combined were not at all
times convincing. Sometimes controversial entries were included whose
interpretation provoked long discussions. More attention was paid to
details, which in most of the cases were not concerned with the discussion
of the whole body of evidence.
One other reason: whilst modern linguistics made a huge progress, Thracian
scholars stayed within the general Indo-European theory of the Neogrammarians.
The method I used rests on the description of Thracian onomastics obtained
after phonological analysis, because I am concerned with the fact that
every single phonologically attested form of phonemes and morphs is
relevant. For, it helps to list all possible forms of names thus showing
all of the graphemes independently.
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