Palaeohispanic Languages and Epigraphies

In addition to Phoenician, Greek, and Latin, at least four writing systems were used to write the Palaeohispanic languages of Tartessian, Iberian, Celtiberian, and Lusitanian. In total, over three thousand inscriptions are preserved in what is certainly the largest corpus of epigraphic expression in the western Mediterranean world, with the exception of the Italian peninsula. The study of these inscriptions and of the languages that they transmit is not only an essential approach in order to attain a better knowledge of the ancient western Mediterranean, but it is also the key to our understanding of colonial Phoenician and Greek literacy, which lies at the root of the spread of these languages, and of the diffusion of Roman literacy, which played an important role in the final stages of the Palaeohispanic languages. Another aspect that should be highlighted is the importance of these substrata in the fragmentation of Latin and the appearance of modern languages (such as Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Italian, French, etc.); it should also be pointed out that the history of writing was also directly related to these Palaeohispanic languages.