Oscan language

Oscan Language

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Oscan language

Oscan, the language of the Osci

Osci

The Osci were an Italic people of Southern Italy dwelling in Northern Campania and ultimately settling in the border region between Latium and Campania....
, is in the Sabellic branch of the Italic language family

Italic languages

The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European languages language family's Centum branch. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin , and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian language, Oscan language, and the aforementioned Latin....
, which is a branch of Indo-European

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a Language family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau , Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ....
that also includes Umbrian

Umbrian language

Umbrian is an language death Italic languages formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italy region of Roman Umbria. It is closely related to Oscan language....
, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
, and Faliscan

Faliscan language

The Faliscan language, the extinct language of the ancient Falisci, forms, together with Latin, the group of Latino-Faliscan languages. It is preserved in about 100 short inscriptions, dating from the 3rd century BC and 2nd century BC centuries BC, and is written in a variety of the Old Italic alphabet alphabet derived from the Etruscan, and...
. It was spoken in Samnium

Samnium

Samnium is a historical region of the south central Apennine Mountains in Italy, that was home to the Samnites, a group of Sabellic tribes that controlled the area from about 600 BC to about 290 BC....
and in Campania

Campania

Campania is a Regions of Italy of southern Italy in Europe. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy, its total area of 13,595 km? makes it the most densely populated region in the country....
, as well as in Lucania

Lucania

Lucania was an ancient district of southern Italy, extending from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. To the north it adjoined Campania, Samnium and Apulia, and to the south it was separated by a narrow isthmus from the district of Bruttium....
, Ager Bruttius (modern Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , is a Regions of Italy in Southern Italy Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian peninsula. It is bounded to the north by the region of Basilicata, to the south-west by the region of Sicily, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the east by the Ionian Sea....
) and Abruzzo

Abruzzo

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Encyclopedia

Oscan, the language of the Osci

Osci

Italic languages

Indo-European languages

Umbrian language

Umbrian is an language death Italic languages formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italy region of Roman Umbria. It is closely related to Oscan language....
, Latin

Latin

Faliscan language

Samnium

Campania

Lucania

Calabria

Abruzzo

Abruzzo is a region in Italy, its western border lies less than 50 miles due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east....
. Oscan is known from inscriptions beginning in the 5th century BC. The most important Oscan inscriptions are the Tabula Bantina and the Cippus Abellanus. Oscan was written in the Latin

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
and Greek

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
alphabet

Alphabet

An alphabet is a standardized set of letter basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a phoneme, a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past....
s, as well as in a variety of the Old Italic alphabet

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....
.

Dialects of Oscan include Samnite, Marrucine, Paelignan, Vestinian, Sabine

Sabine

The Sabines were an Ancient Italic peoples tribe that lived in ancient Italy, inhabiting Latium before the founding of Rome. Their language belonged to the Osco-Umbrian languages subgroup of Italic languages and shows some similarities to Oscan language and Umbrian language....
, and Marsian.

Oscan had much in common with Latin, though there are also many striking differences, and many common word-groups in Latin were absent and represented by entirely different forms. For example, Latin volo, velle, volui, and other such forms from the Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
root *wel ('to will') were represented by words derived from *gher ('to desire'): Oscan herest ('he wants, desires', English cognate 'yearns') as opposed to Latin vult (id.). Latin locus (place) was absent and represented by slaagid (place).

In phonology

Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
, Oscan also showed differences from Latin: Oscan 'p' in place of Latin 'qu' (Osc. pis, Lat. quis); 'b' in place of Latin 'v'; medial 'f' in contrast to Latin 'b' or 'd' (Osc. mefiai, Lat. mediae), similar to the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic change in the Celtic languages

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....
.

Oscan is considered the most conservative of all the known Italic languages, and among attested Indo-European languages it is rivaled only by Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
in the retention of the inherited vowel system with the diphthongs intact.

Example of an Oscan text (the Cippus Abellanus)

ekkum[svaí píd herieset
trííbarak[avúm tereí púd
liímítú[m] pernúm [púís
herekleís fíísnú mefi[ú
íst, ehtrad feíhúss pú[s
herekleís fíísnam amfr
et, pert víam pússtíst
paí íp íst, pústin slagím
senateís suveís tangi
núd tríbarakavúm lí
kítud. íním íúk tríba
rakkiuf pam núvlanús
tríbarakattuset íúk trí
barakkiuf íním úíttiuf
abellanúm estud. avt
púst feíhúís pús físnam am
fret, eíseí tereí nep abel
lanús nep núvlanús pídum
tríbarakattíns. avt the
savrúm púd eseí tereí íst,
pún patensíns, múíníkad ta[n
ginúd patensíns, íním píd e[íseí
thesavreí púkkapíd ee[stit
a]íttíúm alttram alttr[ús
h]erríns. avt anter slagím
a]bellanam íním núvlanam
s]úllad víú uruvú íst . edú
e]ísaí víaí mefiaí teremen
n]iú staíet.

External links

.
of Buck's
Carl Darling Buck

Carl Darling Buck , United States philologist, was born in Bucksport, Maine.He graduated from Yale University in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and in Leipzig ....
Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian.