The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and current south-eastern France known as the Ligures. Very little is known about ancient Ligurian; the lack of inscriptions and unknown origin of the Ligurian people prevents its certain linguistic classification as a Pre-Indo-European or an Indo-European language. The linguistic hypotheses are mainly based on toponyms and names of persons.
Ancient sources
indicates that the Ligurians were different from the Celts: Because of the strong Celtic influences on the language and culture, the Ligurians were known in antiquity as Celto-Ligurians in some other sources. Herodotus wrote that sigunnai meant 'hucksters, peddlers' among the Ligurians who lived above Massilia.
Scholars, such as Ernst Gamillscheg, Pia Laviosa Zambotti and Yakov Malkiel, consider ancient Ligurian as a pre-Indo-European language, with later and significant Indo-European influences, especially Celtic and Italic, superimposed on the original language. The thesis is that the Ligurians were survivors of the ancient pre-Indo-European populations that had occupied Europe, at least from the fifth millennium BC. These populations would have had their own linguistic strain, which they would have preserved until the onset of waves of Indo-European migration. Later, the latter would conquer the territories, imposing their culture and language on the Ligurians.
Ligurian as an Indo-European language and its relationship with Celtic
argues that Ligurian was a Celtic language, similar to, but not the same as Gaulish. His argument hinges on two points: firstly, the Ligurian place-name Genua is claimed by Delamarre to derive from PIE *ǵenu-, "chin". Many Indo-European languages use 'mouth' to mean the part of a river which meets the sea or a lake, but it is only in Celtic for which reflexes of PIE *ǵenu- mean 'mouth'. Besides Genua, which is considered Ligurian, this is found also in Genava, which may be Gaulish. However, Genua and Genava may well derive from another PIE root with the form *ǵonu-, which means "knee". Delamarre's second point is Plutarch's mention that during the Battle of Aquae Sextiae in 102 BC, the Ambrones began to shout "Ambrones!" as their battle cry; the Ligurian troops fighting for the Romans, on hearing this cry, found that it was identical to an ancient name in their country which the Ligurians often used when speaking of their descent, so they returned the shout, "Ambrones!". A risk of circular logic has been pointed out – if it is believed that the Ligurians are non-Celtic, and if many place names and tribal names that classical authors state are Ligurian seem to be Celtic, it is incorrect to discard all the Celtic ones when collecting Ligurian words and to use this edited corpus to demonstrate that Ligurian is non-Celtic or non-Indo-European. The Ligurian-Celtic question is also discussed by Guy Barruol in his 1969 paper The Pre-Roman Peoples of South-East Gaul: Study of Historical Geography.
French historian and philologist Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville held that Ligurian was the first Indo-European language spoken in Western Europe and was related to Sicel. In his work Premiers Habitants de l'Europe, Jubainville proposed an early Indo-European substrate language for Corsica, Sardinia, eastern Spain, southern France and western Italy, based on the occurrence there of place names ending in -asco, -asca, -usco, -osco, -osca as well as -inco, -inca. For examples of the Corsican toponymy cited by Jubainville, see Prehistory of Corsica. Other linguists expanded on the idea. Julius Pokorny adapted it as the basis for his Illyro-Venetic theory. Paul Kretschmer saw evidence for Ligurian in Lepontic inscriptions, now seen as Celtic. Hans Krahe, focusing on river names, converted the concept into his theory of the Old European hydronymy.
