Italic languages. The Italic languages are a subfamily of the Indo-European language family originally spoken by Italic peoples.
They include the Romance languages derived from Latin (Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, French, Romanian, Occitan, etc.); a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, South Picene; and Latin itself. At present, Latin and its daughter Romance languages are the only surviving languages of the Italic language family.
In the past various definitions of "Italic" have prevailed. This article uses the classification presented by the Linguist List:[2] Italic includes the Latin subgroup (Latin and the Romance languages) as well as the ancient Italic languages (Faliscan, Osco-Umbrian and two unclassified Italic languages, Aequian and Vestinian).
Latin. South Picene language. South Picene country in Teramo.
South Picene is an extinct Italic language, belonging to the Sabellic subfamily. It is considered by SIL International to belong to the Umbrian Group although in the long history of its attempted classification it has been placed at a higher level, parallel to Oscan and Umbrian within Sabellic, or even higher, parallel to Sabellic within Italic. It is apparently unrelated to the as yet undeciphered North Picene language. South Picene texts were at first relatively inscrutable even though some words were clearly Indo-European.
The discovery in 1983 that two of the apparently redundant punctuation marks were in reality simplified letters led to an incremental improvement in their understanding and a first translation in 1985. Faliscan language. The Faliscan language was the now-extinct Italic language of the ancient Falisci, forming, together with Latin, the Latino-Faliscan languages group of the Italic languages.
It seems probable that the language lasted on, though being gradually permeated with Latin, until at least 150 BC. Corpus[edit] A specimen of the language appears written round the edge of a picture on a patera, the genuineness of which is established by the fact that the words were written before the glaze was put on: "foied vino pipafo, cra carefo", i. e. in Latin hodie vinum bibam, cras carebo 'today I will drink wine; tomorrow I won't have any' (R. S. Conway, Italic Dialects, p. 312, b). In addition to the remains found in the graves, which belong mainly to the period of Etruscan domination and give ample evidence of material prosperity and refinement, the earlier strata have yielded more primitive remains from the Italic epoch. Phonetic characteristics[edit] Oscan language. Not to be confused with Old Scandinavian, sometimes abbreviated 'OScan'.
Oscan is an extinct language of southern Italy. The language is also the namesake of the language group to which it belonged. Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including the Samnites,[2] the Aurunci (Ausones), and the Sidicini. The latter two tribes were often grouped under the name "Osci". The Oscan group is part of the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic family, and includes the Oscan language and three variants (Hernican, Marrucinian and Paelignian) known only from inscriptions left by the Hernici, Marrucini and Paeligni, minor tribes of eastern central Italy. Evidence[edit] Oscan is known from inscriptions dating as far back as the 5th century BCE. General characteristics[edit] Oscan had much in common with Latin, though there are also many striking differences, and many common word-groups in Latin were absent or represented by entirely different forms.
Writing system[edit] Umbrian language. Umbrian is an extinct Italic language formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italian region of Umbria.
Within the Italic languages it is closely related to the Oscan group and is therefore associated with it in the group of Osco-Umbrian languages. Since that classification was first formulated a number of other languages in ancient Italy were discovered to be more closely related to Umbrian. Therefore a group was devised to contain them, the Umbrian languages. Corpus[edit] Umbrian is known from about 30 inscriptions dated from the 7th through 1st centuries BC.
Other minor inscriptions are from Todi, Assisi and Spoleto. Alphabet[edit] The Iguvine tablets were written in two alphabets. Notes[edit] Bibliography[edit] Buck, Carl Darling (2007) [1904]. External links[edit]