Carian language

Carian
Carian
	Inscription in Carian of the name 𐊨𐊣𐊠𐊦𐊹𐊸, qlaλiś
Region	Ancient southwestern Anatolia and the city of Memphis in Egypt
Ethnicity	Carians
Era	attested 7th–3rd century BCE
Language family	Indo-European Anatolian Luwo-Lydian Luwo-Palaic Luwic Lyco-Carian Carian–Milyan Carian; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Anatolian ;
Writing system	Carian alphabets
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xcr
Linguist List	xcr
Glottolog	cari1274

The Carian language is an extinct language of the Luwic subgroup of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken by the Carians. The known corpus is small, and the majority comes from Egypt. Approximately 170 Carian inscriptions from Egypt are known, while only about 30 are known from Caria itself.

Caria is a region of western Anatolia between the ancient regions of Lycia and Lydia, a name possibly first mentioned in Hittite sources. Carian is closely related to Lycian and Milyan (Lycian B), and both are closely related to, though not direct descendants of, Luwian. Whether the correspondences between Luwian, Carian, and Lycian are due to direct descent (i.e. a language family as represented by a tree-model), or are due to the effects of a sprachbund, is disputed.