Carian Letter N

Carian N spells the n sound in a Carian word.

Carian was the ancient language of Caria, a region in southwest Anatolia (now southwestern Turkey). Its earliest surviving texts are mostly private and date to the late seventh or sixth century BCE. In the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, Carian also appears in some public inscriptions and on coins, although Greek already served many official texts. Carian disappears from the written record in the Hellenistic period.

Most surviving Carian writing comes from Egypt, where Carian communities left funerary inscriptions (texts connected with the dead) and graffiti. Mercenary service was one route that brought Carian speakers there. Inscriptions often run words together without regular dividers, so a string of letters may not show where one word ends.

Did Carian come from Greek?

Greek influence is likely, but the origin is not settled.

Carian and Greek share letter shapes, but some similar-looking signs represent different sounds. Bilingual inscriptions in Egypt and Greece—texts written in both languages—helped scholars decipher Carian. Greek adaptation is likely, though Carian may also have developed alongside it.

Caria had local alphabets that varied from city to city; Egyptian Carian forms were more uniform. Scholars have suggested that local letter forms may also have marked a city's community identity.

Which way do Carian inscriptions run?

It depends on whether the text comes from Caria or Egypt.

Texts from Caria generally run left to right; Egyptian Carian usually runs right to left, though both directions occur there. Unicode encodes Carian left to right, so a digital transcription may not reproduce the direction of an Egyptian inscription.