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The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance Languages (among others, French , Italian and Spanish ), and a number of extinct languages.

Italic has two known branches:

  • Sabellic , including:

  • --- Oscan , was spoken in the south-central region of the Italian peninsula

  • --- Umbrian group, including:

  • -- Umbrian (not to be confused with the modern Umbrian dialect of Italian), was spoken in the north-central region

  • -- Volscian

  • -- Aequian

  • -- Marsian , the language of the Marsi

  • --- South Picene , in east-central Italy

  • Latino-Faliscan , including:

  • --- Faliscan , was spoken in the area around Falerii Veteres (modern Civita Castellana ) north of the city of Rome

  • --- Latin , was spoken in west-central Italy, the Roman conquests eventually spreading it throughout the empire and beyond

  • -- Romance Languages , the descendants of Latin


The Italic speakers were not native to Italy, but migrated into the Italian peninsula in the course of the .

The Italic languages are first attested in writing from Umbrian and Faliscan inscriptions dating to the 7th Century BC . The alphabets used are based on the Old Italic Alphabet , which is itself based on the Greek Alphabet . The Italic languages themselves show minor influence from the Etruscan and somewhat more from the Ancient Greek languages.

As Rome extended its political dominion over the whole of the Italian peninsula, so too did Latin become dominant over the other Italic languages, which ceased to be spoken perhaps sometime in the 1st Century AD. From so-called Vulgar Latin the Romance Languages emerged.

The ancient Venetic Language , as revealed by inscriptions (including complete sentences) is considered by many linguists to have been very close to the Italic languages and it is sometimes even classified as Italic.


See also



References

  • Ernst Pulgram : ''Tongues of Italy, Prehistory and History''

  • Rix, Helmut (2004). Ausgliederung und Aufgliederung der italischen Sprachen. ''Languages in Prehistoric Europe''. ISBN 3-8253-1449-9