In antiquity, Phrygia ( /ˈfrɪdʒiə/; Greek: Φρυγία, Ancient Greek: [pʰrygía]) Turkish: Frigya) was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians (Phruges or Phryges) initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges (Briges), changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the Hellespont.
During the flourishing of the city-state of Troy, a part of the Bryges emigrated to Anatolia as Trojan allies or under the protection of Troy.[citation needed] The Trojan language did not survive; consequently, its exact relationship to the Phrygian language and the affinity of Phrygian society to that of Troy remain open questions. Similarly, the date of migration and the relationship of the Phrygians to the Hittite empire are unknown. While some consider the Phrygians part of a wider "Thraco-Phrygian" group, some linguists dismiss this hypothesis since Thracian (and hence Daco-Thracian) seem to belong to the Satem group of Indo-European languages, while Phrygian shared several similarities with other Indo-European languages of the Centum group (Latin, the Anatolian languages). Of all the Indo-European languages, Phrygian seems to have been most closely linked to Greek, suggesting that the two languages belonged to the same dialectal subgroup of early Indo-European.A conventional date of c. 1180 BC is often used, at the very end of the Hittite empire. It is certain that Phrygia was constituted on Hittite land, and yet not at the very center of Hittite power in the big bend of the Halys River, where Ankara now is.