Were the Trojans Greek?

[Byzantine fanatic]

I have read that there were several waves of Greek migration to the western coast of Anatolia (modern Turkey), especially along the Aegean. Were the inhabitants of Troy part of these proto-Greek speakers, in the late Bronze Age? Would the Trojans and the Greeks have been able to speak to each other and understand each other's language?

 

[yourworstnightmare]

We don't know much about the Trojans. The city of Troy was most likely a Hittite client state that gradually gained independence together with the other Hittite clients on the Anatolian West Coast when the Hittites lost much of their Power projection there. Were they Greeks, were they a people closely related to the Greeks? Were they something else? We simply don't know.

Some useful links:
http://archive.archaeology.org/0405/etc/troy3.html
https://eview.anu.edu.au/cross-sections/vol2/pdf/ch02.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/3672398/How_Compelling_is_the_Evidence_concerning_the_Trojan_War

 

[Edwardx]

I am not entirely sure of the top of my head but due to it's location and the fact that there were Greek city's in Turkey it can be assumed that they were or at least incredibly similar to the Greeks we just don't know that much about them, but as a city it predated many of those in Greece with some archaeological finds dating to 3000bc, though it is likely that due to trade they were influenced by Greek States and they themselves were influenced by Troy.

Edit: dam ninja (lol)

 

[Stolengood]

"Wilusa" doesn't sound particularly Greek, to me...

 

[yourworstnightmare]

"Wilusa" doesn't sound particularly Greek, to me...

Well, we still have no idea what the Trojans called their city, but yes, the Hittite name is Wilusa, and it'sa possible the Trojans were ethnic Hittites or Luwians or some other Anatolian people. We have Greek sources and Hittite sources, but unfortunately no good Trojan sources.

 

[Sevarics]

Wasn't the Troy location constantly destroyed and rebuilt? It's entirely possible that at one point when it was destroyed it was rebuilt and Hellenized.

 

[Mongo]

According to Manfred Korfmann, Director of Excavations at Troy, in this article:

We know today, from our own excavations and even from earlier ones, that in all main respects, Bronze Age Troy had stronger ties with Anatolia than with the Aegean. We've learned this from the tons of local pottery and small finds, such as a seal with a local hieroglyphic inscription, as well as the overall settlement picture, mud-brick architecture, and cremation burials.

From the Wikipedia article about the language of Troy:

There was not enough evidence to fruitfully speculate upon the language of Troy until 1995, when a late Hittite seal was found in the excavations at Troy, probably dating from about 1275 BC. Not considered a locally made object, this item from the Trojan "state chancellery" was inscribed in Luwian and to date provides the only archaeological evidence for any language at Troy at this period. It indicates that Luwian was known at Troy, which is not surprising since it was a lingua franca of the Hittite empire, of which Troy was probably in some form of dependency.

Another sphere of research concerns a handful of Trojan personal names mentioned in the Iliad. Among sixteen recorded names of Priam's relatives, at least nine (including Anchises and Aeneas) are not Greek and may be traced to "pre-Greek Asia Minor". On this basis Calvert Watkins in 1986 argued that the Trojans may have been Luwian-speaking. For instance, the name Priam is connected to the Luwian compound Pariya-muwa, which means "exceptionally courageous".

 

[Faeelin]

There's actually a surprising lack of Achaean material goods in western Anatolian bronze age sites. One theory is that the Hittites were engaged in economic warfare with the Achaeans.

 

[betrayor]

Even if they weren't Greeks , knowing the Greek language would be another things since it would be too useful for trade.....

 

[Simreeve]

I've seen three interesting points raised In support of the possibility that the Trojans -- or, at least, a significant element in their ruling classes at the time of the war -- were akin to the Greeks.

1/. Their royal family's history apparently starts only a few generations earlier, about as far back as the histories of those Achaean families for whom we have any stories, suggesting that they might have been part of the same wave of migration from somewhere in or beyond the Balkans.

2/. Unlike the situation for the Greek cities in Ionia (further south on the Asian coast) or further afield, there are apparently no historical records for the foundation of the 'Aeolian' Greek cities in the area around Troy.

3/. Their local 'Aeolian' dialect apparently wasn't a very close relative to either Attic/Ionian or Dorian -- or even to the Achaean-related dialect of Cyprus -- which suggests that their people had been separate from those of mainland Greece for quite a while.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Some kind of proto- Luwianesque is a good guess, considering that's the best guess for what was going on in Western Anatolia during the Bronze Age (or rather that languages like Carian, Lycian and Lydian was slowly separating from Luwian.

However all is guesswork.

 

[Falecius]

There is a detailed study on Luwian which also discusses the language of Troy. I browsed it some times ago, and the gist of the argument is "we SERIOUSLY don't know, but the Luwian hypotesis is not as strong as assumed, although it cannot be ruled out". However, Yakubovich's outline suggests that the Luwian speaking area was further Southeast. There some room to guess that another Anatolian language was spoken in the area.
We have, however, at least one Greek name (and possibly two, if Yakubovich is right in his interpretation of Apollo as being borrowed form Mycenean to Anatolian and not the other way round) attested in Troy from Bronze Age Hittite documents, which, while not proving that Greek was normally spoken in Troy, suggest that the Trojan elite may have had some familiarity with it. However, personal names should be take with caution as linguistic evidence: English is replete with, say, originally Hebrew names, but that of course does not make it Semitic.

 

[Byzantine fanatic]

So the consensus seems to be that the Trojans were probably not Greek speakers as such, but they may have been familiar to some extent with the Greeks as a foreign people and some degree of contact existed between the two societies, including possibly movements of individuals, especially at the elite level?

 

[Escape Zeppelin]

So the consensus seems to be that the Trojans were probably not Greek speakers as such, but they may have been familiar to some extent with the Greeks as a foreign people and some degree of contact existed between the two societies, including possibly movements of individuals, especially at the elite level?

They were probably very familiar with the Greeks. Even by the standards of the period, sailing from any of the Greek states to Troy would have been a fairly easy trip. Troy's location indicates that sea trade was a major focus and Greece would have been one of their primary trading partners simply by geography. Later triremes are capable of a top cruising speed of 8 knots and at a distance of just over 200 miles a ship can sail from Athens and reach Troy in 23 hours. Even if period ships have half the speed sailing from Greece to Troy is a short, convenient trip.

Whatever their cultural or linguistic differences the Trojan and Greek states probably communicated on a regular basis.

 

[Tyr Anazasi]

The ancient Greek never recognized Troy as a part of themselves. They were partly highly respected, like Hector, but Barbarians nevertheless. At least so Homer told us and so it was accepted by the Greek.

 

[Michael B]

They are reputed to have worshipped a different set of dieties to the Myceneans. If correct, that would make them non Greeks.

Also, it should be noted that the only detailed account that we have of the Trojans is Greek. Hence any similarities could be due to bards using descriptions that there listeners were familiar with just as in the Middle Ages Arthur and his knights were "Medievalised".

 

[Fabius Maximus]

The ancient Greek never recognized Troy as a part of themselves. They were partly highly respected, like Hector, but Barbarians nevertheless. At least so Homer told us and so it was accepted by the Greek.

Does he? About the only difference I recall is that in Book II the Trojans are described as making a lot of noise when coming into battle, whereas the Achaeans march in silence. Other than that, the two sides are pretty much identical.

(Not that I think that's very historically significant; more likely the epic tradition deliberately elided any cultural differences.)

 

[yourworstnightmare]

I think Herodotus names the Trojan war as the first in a long eternal series of conflicts between Greeks and Barbarians, that culminated in the Persian wars.

 

[Falecius]

So the consensus seems to be that the Trojans were probably not Greek speakers as such, but they may have been familiar to some extent with the Greeks as a foreign people and some degree of contact existed between the two societies, including possibly movements of individuals, especially at the elite level?

Movement of people at elite level between "Akhiyyawa" and "Wilusa", very likely to be identified with some Mycenean hegemonic power and with Troy respectively, is confirmed by contemporary Hittite sources in terms that make it difficult to dispute.
However, polities in the Bronze Age may well have been multilingual. We have evidence of this at a written level, particularly in Ugarit and elsewhere in northern Syria. The Hittite state was certainly multilingual in writing, and with near certainty in spoken usage as well (this is hardly surprising considering just how big the Hittite empire was, but what's noteworthy is that multiple languages were used in the central archives, to an extent that is relatively rare in other Great Kingdoms of the time).
We can safely assume that some elite Trojans, whatever language they actually spoke, were likely to be able to manage Greek.

 

[Anaxagoras]

The ancient Greek never recognized Troy as a part of themselves. They were partly highly respected, like Hector, but Barbarians nevertheless. At least so Homer told us and so it was accepted by the Greek.

What version of Homer did you read? There really isn't any difference between the Greeks and Trojans in Homer. They worship the same gods, easily speak to one another (implying that they speak the same language), share the same cultural values, and so forth. There's not really any difference between them. Homer told of the Trojans as if they were Greeks.