Antalya, Turkey-Hurriyat Daily News The report said that five additional letters have been identified in the Sidetic alphabet, bringing the total to 31. The letters belong to a lost language spoken in Side, an ancient port city in Anatolia. Sidetic is related to the Lycian and Carian languages of Anatolia. Ferista Alanyali of Anadolu University and her colleagues identified the letters, comprising 30 to 40 lines of text, in bilingual inscriptions they recently discovered at the site. “The paucity of inscriptions and the fact that most consist of only one or two lines make them difficult to decipher,” Alanyali said. Scholars generally agree that the terms “Siruan” and “Siruwan” refer to the city itself. “This interpretation adds a new dimension to the discussion about the early history of the city and the origin of its name,” Alanyali said. “Research is ongoing, but the city’s name probably still means ‘pomegranate’,” he said. The inhabitants of Side continued to speak their language for about 200 years after the conquest of Alexander the Great, when Greek became widely spoken in the area. Alanyali concluded that Sidetic’s persistence reflected the strength of the city’s culture and influence. For more information about the ancient languages of Eurasia, visit “First Indo-European Speakers” one of AarcheologyTop 10 discoveries of 2025.
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