Alphabets on the periphery: the reinterpretation of the corpus doctrinae in ancient Thrace and Pamphylia.

Over the past two decades, the epigraphic record of western Thrace has been enriched by the publication of numerous inscriptions in Greek and in a non-Greek language generally identified as ‘Thracian.’ This article evaluates the contribution of this new evidence to our understanding of the dynamics of alphabet transmission in late Archaic and Classical northern Aegean and of the script’s adaptation to the writing of the Thracian language. Drawing on the perspectives of the corpus doctrinae and communities of practice, we contend that the proposed derivation of the Thracian alphabet of Zone and Samothrace from a Paro-Thasian template is unconvincing for several graphematic, paleographic, and epigraphic reasons. Instead, we argue for a multilinear transmission centered around regional sanctuaries during the late Archaic period. These different inputs were reworked by Thracian speakers into one or more locally developed adaptation(s) that incorporate(s) features so far unattested in the Paro-Thasian nor, in some cases, in the Greek alphabetic repertoire, such as the graphematic distinction between /i/ and /j/.