LYCIAN LANGUAGE

extinct language of southwestern Asia Minor (now Turkey), written in an indigenous Lycian alphabet based on a West Greek prototype. Inscriptions in the language date from about 500 BC to about 200 BC. Until 1945 scholars had believed Lycian to be closely related to either Greek or Iranian, but in 1945 Holger Pedersen, a Danish linguist, published a convincing monograph indicating that Lycian belonged to the Anatolian group. Later, other scholars, among them the Frenchman Emmanuel Laroche, showed Lycian to be related to Luwian. It is now believed that Lycian descended from a West Luwian dialect. See also Luwian language.