Vowels

Lydian has seven vowels: 𐤠 a, 𐤤 e, 𐤦 i, 𐤬 o, 𐤰 u, 𐤵 ã, and 𐤶 ẽ, the last two being nasal vowels, typically before a (synchronic or diachronic) nasal consonant (like n, ñ or m). The vowels e, o, ã, and ẽ occur only when accented.^[13] A vowel or glide 𐤧 y appears rarely, only in the oldest inscriptions,^[14] and probably indicates an allophone of i or e that is perhaps unstressed.

Lydian is notable for its extensive consonant clusters, which resulted from the loss of word-final short vowels, together with massive syncope; there may have been an unwritten [ə] in such sequences.

Consonants

(Note: until recently the Buckler (1924)^[4] transliteration scheme was often used, which may lead to confusion. This older system wrote v, ν, s, and ś, instead of today's w (𐤥), ñ (𐤸), š (𐤳), and s (𐤮). The modern system renders the sibilants more naturally and prevents confusion between v (= w 𐤥) and the Greek nu symbol ν (= ñ 𐤸).)

Voicing was likely not distinctive in Lydian. However /p t k/ are voiced before nasals and apparently before /r/. The palatal affricate (τ) and sibilant (š) may have been palato-alveolar.

It has now been argued that the laterals l and λ are actually flaps.^[15]

The sign 𐤣 has traditionally been transliterated d and interpreted as an interdental /ð/ resulting from the sound change *i̯ > ð or the lenition of Proto-Anatolian *t. However, it has recently been argued that in all contexts d in fact represents the palatal glide /j/, previously considered absent from Lydian.^[16] An interdental /ð/ would stand as the only interdental sound in Lydian phonology, whereas a palatal interpretation of d is complemented by a full series of other palatal consonants: λ, š, ñ, and τ.

Lydian, with its many palatal and nasal sounds, must have sounded quite strange to the ears of ancient Greeks, and transcription of Lydian names into Greek would therefore present some difficulties. Recently a case has been made that the Lydian word Qλdãns, pronounced /kʷɾʲ'ðãns/, both meaning 'king' and the name of a god, could correspond to the Greek Κροῖσος, or Croesus, the last Lydian king, whose kingdom was conquered by the Persians. If the identification is correct it would have the interesting historical consequence that king Croesus was not saved from being burnt at the stake, as Herodotus tells us,^[17] but chose suicide and was subsequently deified.^[14]

Stress

Heiner Eichner developed rules to determine which syllable in a word has the stress accent.^[13] In short, the rules are:

• Syllables with vowel -ã-, -ẽ-, -e-, -o-, -aa-, and -ii- always have stress. Syllables with -i- (-y-), -a- or -u- may be accented or unaccented.
• Enclitics (-añ-, -in-, -it-, etc.) never have stress.
• Prefixes, even those with a long vowel (ẽn-, ẽt-), do not have stress.^[18]
• An -a- before a nasal (m, n, ñ) never has stress.
• In consonant clusters syllabic liquidae (l, λ, r), nasals (m, n, ñ) and sibilants (s, š) do not have stress.
• Within a declension or conjugation stress does not move from one syllable to another.

A useful application of those rules is the investigation of metres in Lydian poetry.

Nouns

Nouns and adjectives distinguish singular and plural forms. Words in the texts are predominantly singular. Plural forms are scarce, and a dual has not been found in Lydian. There are two genders: animate (or 'common') and inanimate (or 'neuter'). Only three cases are securely attested: nominative, accusative, and dative-locative. A genitive case seems to be present in the plural, but in the singular usually a so-called possessive is used instead, which is similar to the Luwic languages: a suffix -li is added to the root of a substantive, and thus an adjective is formed that is declined in turn. However, recently it has been defended that a form ending in -l, formerly thought to be an "endingless" variant of the possessive, was indeed a genitive singular.^[19] Of an ablative case there are only a few uncertain examples.

Nouns, adjectives, and pronomina are all declined according to a similar paradigm:^[5][6][18]

Verbs

Just as in other Anatolian languages verbs in Lydian were conjugated in the present-future and preterite tenses with three persons singular and plural. Imperative or gerundive forms have not been found yet. Singular forms are often hard to distinguish from plural forms in the third person present active (both ending in -t/-d): the plural form seems to be in principle nasalized, but this could not always be expressed in the writing.

Lydian distinguished a mediopassive voice with the third-person singular ending -t(a)λ or -daλ (derived from Proto-Anatolian *-tori; -t(a)λ after consonant stems and part of the stems ending in a vowel, -daλ when lenited after other stems ending in a vowel or glide).^[20][21]

About a dozen conjugations can be distinguished, on the basis of (1) the verbal root ending (a-stems, consonant stems, -ši-stems, etc.), and (2) the endings of the third person singular being either unlenited (-t; -tλ, -taλ) or lenited (-d; -dλ, -daλ). For example, šarpta-^(t) (to inscribe, to carve) is an unlenited a-stem (šarptat, he inscribes), qaλmλa-^(d) (to be king) is a lenited a-stem (qaλmλad, he rules). Differences between the various conjugations are minor.

Many Lydian verbs are composite, using prefixes such as ẽn- (= 'in-'?), ẽt- (= 'into-'^[22]), fa-/f- ('then, subsequently, again'?^[23]), šaw-, and kat-/kaτ- (= 'down-'?), and suffixes like -ãn-/-ẽn- (durative?^[19]), -no-/-ño- (causative?^[24]), -ši- (iterative?^[25]), and -ki- or -ti- (denominative?^[26]); their meaning is often difficult to determine.^[5]

Examples of verbal conjugation:^[27][5]

Particles

To emphasize where an important next part of a sentence begins, Lydian uses a series of enclitic particles that can be affixed to a pivotal word. Examples of such "emphatic" enclitics are -in-, -it-/-iτ-, -t-/-τ-, -at-, and -m-/-um-. When stacked and combined with other suffixes (such as pronomina, or the suffix -k = 'and') veritable clusters are formed. The word ak = 'so..., so if...' provides many examples:^[5]

akτin (= ak-τ-in) - 'so...', 'so if...', 'yea, if...'

akmsin (= ak-m-s-in) - 'so if he...' (-s- = 'he'), or (= ak-ms-in) - 'so if to them...' (-ms- = 'to them')

akmλt (= ak-m-λ-t) - 'so if to him...' (-λ- = 'to him'); etc.

The Lydian bilingual

In May 1912 American excavators at the Sardis necropolis discovered a bilingual inscription in Lydian and Aramaic.^[28] Being among the first texts found, it provided a limited equivalent of the Rosetta Stone and permitted a first understanding of the Lydian language.^[3]

The first line of the Lydian text has been destroyed, but can be reconstructed from its Aramaic counterpart.

Vocabulary

Examples of words in the bilingual:

𐤬𐤭𐤠 – ora – month; cf. Greek ὥρα (season, year, moment), Latin hora (hour), English hour

𐤩𐤠𐤲𐤭𐤦𐤳𐤠 – laqriša – wall, walls (traditional translation); letters, inscription (?)^[32]

𐤡𐤦𐤭𐤠 – pira – house; cf. Hitt. pēr/parn- 'house'

𐤲𐤦𐤭𐤠 – qira – field, ground, immovable property

𐤨 – -k (suffix) – and; cf. Greek τε, Latin -que = and

Other words with Indo-European roots and with modern cognates:

𐤲𐤦𐤳 – qiš – who; cf. Greek τίς, Latin quis, French qui

𐤡𐤭𐤠𐤱𐤭𐤮 – prafrs – community, brotherhood; cf. Latin frater, English brother, French frère

𐤹𐤦𐤥𐤳 – ciwš – god; cf. Greek Ζεύς, Latin deus, French dieu (god)

𐤠𐤷𐤠𐤮 – aλas – other; cf. Greek ἄλλος (other; is an element in words such as allogamy, allomorph, allopathy, allotropy), Latin alius (other), alter (another, the other one, second), French autre

Only a small fraction of the Lydian vocabulary is clearly of Indo-European stock. Gusmani^[6] provides lists of words that have been linked to Hittite, various other Indo-European languages, and Etruscan.

Lydian words still in use

Labrys (Greek: λάβρυς, lábrys) is the term for a symmetrical double-bitted axe originally from Crete in Greece, one of the oldest symbols of Greek civilization. The priests at Delphi in classical Greece were called Labryades (the men of the double axe). The term labrys "double-axe" is not found in any surviving Lydian inscription, but on the subject, Plutarch states that "the Lydians call the axe labrys" (Λυδοὶ γὰρ ‘λάβρυν’ τὸν πέλεκυν ὀνομάζουσι).^[33]

Another possibly Lydian loanword may be tyrant "absolute ruler",^[34] which was first used in Ancient Greek sources, without negative connotations, for the late 8th century or early 7th century BCE. It is possibly derived from the native town of King Gyges of Lydia, founder of the Mermnad dynasty, which was Tyrrha in classical antiquity and is now Tire, Turkey.^[35] Yet another is the element molybdenum, borrowed from Ancient Greek mólybdos, "lead", from Mycenaean Greek mo-ri-wo-do, which in Lydian was mariwda- "dark".^[36] All of those loanwords confirm a strong cultural interaction between the Lydians and the Greeks since the Creto-Mycenaean era (2nd millennium BCE).