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Lepontic language
 
 
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Lepontic is an extinct Celtic
Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European languages language family. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul....
 language that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul

Cisalpine Gaul was the Roman name for a geographical area , in the territory of modern-day northern Italy , inhabited by the Celts. Sometimes referred to as Gallia Citerior , Provincia Ariminum, or Gallia Togata ....
 (today's Northern Italy
Northern Italy

Northern Italy comprises two areas belonging to Italian NUTS level 1 regions:*North-West : Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria;*North-East : Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige/S?dtirol, Emilia-Romagna....
) between 700 BC and 400 BC. Sometimes called Cisalpine Celtic, it is considered a dialect of the Gaulish language
Gaulish language

The Gaulish language is the Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Vulgar Latin of the late Roman Empire became dominant in Roman Gaul....
 and thus a Continental Celtic language (Eska 1998).

The language is only known from a few inscriptions discovered that were written in the alphabet of Lugano
Lugano

Lugano is a town in the south of Switzerland, in the Linguistic geography of Switzerland cantons of Switzerland of Ticino, which borders Italy....
, one of five main varieties of Northern Italic alphabets
Old Italic alphabet

Old Italic refers to several now extinct alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages....
, derived from the Etruscan alphabet.






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Lepontic is an extinct Celtic
Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European languages language family. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul....
 language that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul

Cisalpine Gaul was the Roman name for a geographical area , in the territory of modern-day northern Italy , inhabited by the Celts. Sometimes referred to as Gallia Citerior , Provincia Ariminum, or Gallia Togata ....
 (today's Northern Italy
Northern Italy

Northern Italy comprises two areas belonging to Italian NUTS level 1 regions:*North-West : Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria;*North-East : Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige/S?dtirol, Emilia-Romagna....
) between 700 BC and 400 BC. Sometimes called Cisalpine Celtic, it is considered a dialect of the Gaulish language
Gaulish language

The Gaulish language is the Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Vulgar Latin of the late Roman Empire became dominant in Roman Gaul....
 and thus a Continental Celtic language (Eska 1998).

The language is only known from a few inscriptions discovered that were written in the alphabet of Lugano
Lugano

Lugano is a town in the south of Switzerland, in the Linguistic geography of Switzerland cantons of Switzerland of Ticino, which borders Italy....
, one of five main varieties of Northern Italic alphabets
Old Italic alphabet

Old Italic refers to several now extinct alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages....
, derived from the Etruscan alphabet. These inscriptions were found in an area centered on Lugano
Lugano

Lugano is a town in the south of Switzerland, in the Linguistic geography of Switzerland cantons of Switzerland of Ticino, which borders Italy....
, including Lago di Como
Lake Como

Lake Como is a lake of Glacier origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of 146 km?, making it the third largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore....
 and Lago Maggiore
Lake Maggiore

Lake Maggiore is the most westerly of the three large Prealps lakes of Italy and the second largest after Lake Garda. It lies approximately at ....
. Similar scripts were used for writing the Rhaetic
Raetic language

Raetic is an extinct language spoken in the ancient region of Raetia in the Eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by a limited number of short inscriptions in a variant of the Etruscan alphabet....
 and Venetic languages, and the Germanic
Germanic languages

The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Pre-Roman Iron Age....
 runic alphabet
Runic alphabet

The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using Letter known as runes to write various Germanic languages prior to the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter....
s probably derive from a script belonging to this group.

Lepontic was assimilated first by Gaulish
Gaulish language

The Gaulish language is the Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Vulgar Latin of the late Roman Empire became dominant in Roman Gaul....
, with the settlement of Gaulish tribes north of the River Po, and then by Latin, after the Roman Republic
Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the phase of the Ancient Rome characterized by a republican form of government; a period which began with the overthrow of the Roman Roman Kingdom, c....
 gained control over Gallia Cisalpina during the late second
2nd century BC

The 2nd century BC started the first day of 200 BC and ended the last day of 101 BC. It is considered part of the Classical antiquity era, although depending on the region being studied, other terms may be more proper ....
 and first century BC.

The grouping of all of these inscriptions into a single Celtic language is disputed, and some (including specifically all of the older ones) are said to be in a non-Celtic language related to Ligurian
Ligurian language

The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and south-eastern France known as the Ligures....
 (Whatmough 1933, Pisani 1964). Under this view, which was the prevailing view until about 1970, Lepontic is the correct name for the non-Celtic language, while the Celtic language is to be called Cisalpine Gaulish. Following Lejeune (1971), the consensus view became that Lepontic should be classified as a Celtic language, albeit possibly as divergent as Celtiberian
Celtiberian language

Celtiberian is an extinct language Indo-European language of the Celtic languages branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula lying...
, and in any case quite distinct from Cisalpine Gaulish. Only in recent years, there has been a tendency to identify Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish as one and the same language.

While the language is named after the tribe of the Lepontii
Lepontii

The Lepontii were an ancient people occupying portions of Rhaetia in the Alps during the time of the Ancient Rome conquest of that territory. The Lepontii have been variously described as a Celtic, Ligurian language, Raetian, and Germanic tribes tribe....
, which occupied portions of ancient Rhaetia, specifically an Alpine
Alps

The Alps is the name for one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east; through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany; to France in the west....
 area straddling modern Switzerland
Switzerland

Switzerland is a landlocked Swiss Alps country of roughly 7.7 million people in Western Europe with an area of 41,285 km?. Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called Cantons of Switzerland....
 and Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
 and bordering Cisalpine Gaul, the term is currently used by many Celticists to apply to all Celtic dialects of ancient Italy. This usage is disputed by those who continue to view the Lepontii as one of several indigenous pre-Roman tribes of the Alps, quite distinct from the Gaul
Gaul

Gaul is the name used for the region of Western Europe comprising part of present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River Rhine....
s who invaded the plains of Northern Italy in historical times.

The older Lepontic inscriptions date back to before the 5th century BC, the item from Castelletto Ticino being dated at the 6th century BC and that from Sesto Calende
Sesto Calende

Sesto Calende is a town located in the province of Varese, in the Lombardy region of northern Italy....
 possibly being from the 7th century BC (Prosdocimi, 1991). The people who made these inscriptions are nowadays identified with the Golasecca culture
Golasecca culture

The Golasecca culture is a proto-historic pre-Celtic culture in northern Italy of which the type-site is Golasecca in the province of Varese, Lombardy ....
, which has been ascribed a Celtic identity (De Marinis, 1991). The extinction date for Lepontic is only inferred by the absence of later inscriptions.

Sources

Eska, J. F. (1998). The linguistic position of Lepontic. In Proceedings of the twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society vol. 2, Special session on Indo-European subgrouping and internal relations (February 14, 1998), ed. B. K. Bergin, M. C. Plauché, and A. C. Bailey, 2–11. Berkeley
Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in Northern California, in the United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland, California and Emeryville, California....
: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Eska, J. F., and D. E. Evans. (1993). "Continental Celtic". In The Celtic Languages, ed. M. J. Ball, 26–63. London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01035-7.*** Tibiletti Bruno, M. G. (1978). "Ligure, leponzio e gallico". In Popoli e civiltà dell'Italia antica vi, Lingue e dialetti, ed. A. L. Prosdocimi, 129–208. Rome
Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
: Biblioteca di Storia Patria. Tibiletti Bruno, M. G. (1981). "Le iscrizioni celtiche d'Italia". In I Celti d'Italia, ed. E. Campanile, 157–207. Pisa
Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the Arno River on the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa....
: Giardini.*