Iberian writing and language

Abstract

The Iberian language: methodological, geographical, and chronological questions 1.1. At present, any attempt at describing the Iberian language will encounter a series of substantial obstacles of varying nature: – First and foremost is the fact that Iberian is still an undeciphered language. Furthermore, if we were to endeavour to distinguish different categories among undeciphered languages based on our ability to appreciate their linguistic features, Iberian would rank among the most hermetic: not only is there no agreement on the translation of a single word in the language, but we are also only able to determine the parts of speech in the case of some ten terms, while the structure of the texts is almost always impenetrable. – The second problem lies in our still uncertain level of knowledge of the signaries in which Iberian texts were written. In spite of the progress made in this field in recent years, the meaning of some signs continues to be in doubt: this has direct repercussions on our knowledge of the phonetics and phonology of the language, but in addition it leads to difficulties when it comes to detecting possible homographs or homonyms.