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Starting from an extra-linguistic reflection on the Phrygian word βέκος, “bread”, inspired by a 1997 article by Pietro Vannicelli, this paper is an attempt to briefly highlight the belonging of Phrygian to the so-called Balkanische Sprachbund, and above all the deep genetic relationship between Greek and Phrygian. The two languages developed from the same Balkan linguistic environment, but the migration of the Phrygians to Anatolia in the late second millennium BC interrupted their geographical continuity. Phrygian, attested by a huge number of inscriptions from the ninth century BC to the third century AD, turned out to be a Balkan linguistic island surrounded by several indigenous languages belonging to the Anatolian group. The Phrygians became part of that Anatolian environment, as many cultural influences, but also some linguistic features, can easily prove. However, the original link with the sister language resists, becoming even stronger after the gradual Hellenization of the Anatolian peninsula by the Greeks, and the inscriptions provide the evidences to investigate backwards their genetic relatedness.