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espanolEn este trabajo se presenta un analisis de los procesos de adaptacion del alfabeto griego a cuatro lenguas diferentes del Mediterraneo antiguo: el enotrio (un dialecto del grupo sabelio), el iberico, el osco y el galo. En cada caso se senala en que ha consistido el proceso de adaptacion, la cronologia en el empleo de la escritura y algunas particularidades paleograficas. En general, estos cuatro alfabetos son las maneras respectivas de escribir una lengua local mediante letras griegas mas que una creacion especifica de una escritura como una senal de identidad. EnglishIn this paper an analysis of the processes of adaptation of the Greek alphabet to four different languages of the Ancient Mediterranean is offered; Oenotrian (a Sabellian dialect), Iberian, Oscan and Gaulish. In each case the author shows how the process of adaptation was, and also the chronology of the use of the script and some palaeographic features. In general terms, these four alphabets are rather ways of writing a local language by means of Greek letters than a specific creation of a script as a sign of identity.

Let us start with an image (Figure 6.1). We see, on the pediment of a temple, a male god with a bunch of grapes and a goblet, flanked by a stick with a ribbon, a thyrsus, and a tympanon, in the company of a banqueter and a panther. He is easily recognisable: Dionysos, Bacchus, Liber for Latin speakers, Fufluns for Etruscans. As the relief was cut in Oscan Pompeii during the second half of the third century BC, 2 local worshippers must have called him *Loufir or Lifar. 3 And yet, the iconography of the pediment is inspired by a Hellenistic pattern, which has been broadly spread over Italy, as we shall see: and we recognise the god exactly because this voiceless image is, if not transcultural by nature, at least meaningful enough to be adopted by several cultures that might fit their own conception of the god over what is more or less the same image.

The origin of the Latin words bardus ‘stupid’ and gurdus ‘stupid’ is examined. It is shown that bardus cannot be borrowed from Etruscan, as previously claimed. It is probably a borrowing from Oscan and is cognate with forms like Greek βραδύς, Lithuanian gurdus ‘slow’. While gurdus could be a loanword from some unknown language, it could also be the regular result in Latin of *gw ord-o-, an o-stem adjective derived from the same root as the u-stem that lies behind bardus.

The shadowy Roman god Sēmō and the plural group Sēmōnēs have long been associated with sēmen ‘seed.’ But the evidence that Sēmō or the Sēmōnēs have anything to do with seeds is lacking. The Sēmōnēs first appear in the Carmen Arvale : here they constitute Mars9s retinue. The Sabellic evidence also puts Semo firmly in the Martial sphere. The form Semo appears, in addition, as part of the Semo Sancus Dius Fidius complex. These divinities are connected with the sanctity ( sancīre ) of treaties ( foedus , fidēs ) and oaths. In “Dumezilian” terms Semo is a god of the first (priestly) and second (warrior) function, but not a god of the third (agricultural) function, precisely the opposite of what the standard etymology predicts. New evidence from Oscan allows us to reject conclusively the connection between sēmen and Sēmō . In an inscription from Pietrabbondante the god9s name is spelled seemunei (dat. sg.) and this spelling with ee is not the expected one. If the Oscan form were a derivative of the root seen in sēmen , the spelling would have to have been † siimunei . The spelling ee shows that the Oscan form, and its Latin cognate, must have a different origin. The only plausible source is *seγVmōn -. A form that matches reconstructed * seγVmōn - exactly is Gaulish Segomoni and Ogham Irish SEGAMANAS. The Gaulish god is identified with Mars. The Celtic and Italic forms continue a Proto-Italo-Celtic * seĝ h omōn - ‘strong one,’ ‘strongman,’ which is a derivative of a noun * seĝ h om ‘strength.’ The root * seĝ h - (Gk. ἔχω etc.) had the original meaning ‘hold firmly’ and this developed to ‘be strong,’ ‘conquer’ in Indo-Iranian and Western Indo-European. The god * seĝ h omōn- is the sole example of a divine name that perhaps can be considered a unique and innovative feature of the ancient Proto-Italo-Celtic speech community.

The Oscan law of the Tabula Bantina (tbo), the longest Oscan text found to this date, is the product of a politically significant time in Roman history in which the Italian socii revolted against, and tried to assert independence from, Rome. In spite of this, the tbo largely reads like a Roman law, particularly in vocabulary and phrasing. The aim of this article is to reveal the extent to which the tbo was influenced by Latin legal language. It will identify several remarkable syntactic, stylistic and epigraphic aspects of this Oscan law and compare them to conventions in the Latin legal register.

The study of language contact in the ancient world has been an area of huge growth over the past ten years. However, in areas of the ancient world where sources are more limited, scholars have been more hesitant to make sweeping claims about the nature of language contact, even in communities where societal bilingualism is likely to have existed for many centuries. Languages only attested in fragmentary epigraphic corpora are considered the ultimate “bad data” and have not always received a great deal of attention in historical sociolinguistics, despite these texts representing our best evidence of many of the communities across the ancient Mediterranean. In response to this problem, this article asks how we should go about interpreting the evidence of ancient language contact in small or fragmentary corpora of texts. This article uses the Oscan corpus from Southern Italy (Lucania, Bruttium and Messina) c. 400-50 BCE as a case study for examining bilingualism in a fragmentary corpus. It outlines the data gathered from a range of different text-types from Southern Italy, the different kinds of contact phenomena which have been found in these texts, and whether there are any discernible patterns in the data. It argues, because of the fragmentary state of the Oscan corpus, that there is little clear evidence of chronological or geographic differentiation in levels of bilingualism. Rather, the evidence shows that in this corpus some text-types are more likely than others to contain contact phenomena. With this in mind, this paper proposes a new model which includes consideration of text-type for the interpretation of language contact and bilingualism in fragmentary corpora.

Despite numerous recent studies of Italic textiles and textile production etc., no systematic study has so far been attempted regarding the textile terminology of Italic languages besides Latin. The present study seeks to remedy this, making a first step into the textile terminology of Sabellic languages, predominantly Oscan and Umbrian. There are two types of sources for Sabellic textile terminology: inscriptions and glosses in Greek and Latin literature. Both are, however, fraught with uncertainties. The glosses, as for example seen in the case of Etruscan, may have been misunderstood or misinterpreted and should be treated with due caution, and there is considerable debate on many of the epigraphically attested terms and significant doubt about their precise interpretation. Glosses are especially problematic, since they have been transmitted to us through a succession of manuscripts. As noted by Clackson, it is only through epigraphy that we can access the texts, and therefore the terms themselves, directly. Sometimes, however, the glosses are indeed correct, making their investigation important. The extant Sabellic corpus, although minuscule compared to Latin, is nevertheless linguistically invaluable and offers complementary evidence of the Indo-European and Italic textile lexicon, although many aspects of the various Sabellic languages are notoriously difficult to interpret and remain a matter of debate. The present contribution does not claim to endorse the interpretation of the most doubtful cases, but includes them in order to provide an overview of Sabellic terms that have been suggested by scholars as belonging to the domain of textiles. (Less)

The Mills Valley is situated in the Monti Lattari Regional Park and is included in a context in which interesting traces of life forms have been found, dating back to the eras of the Upper Jurassic and the Cretaceous, in a period between 165 and 65 million years ago. The earliest forms of human settlement date back to the Oscan population of Indo-European origin and the first urbanization took place in 89 BC. The current geological structure of the Lattari Mountains owes its development to the flow of water and debris produced by erosion and transport. The Mills Valley is washed by the stream Vernotico. It is urgent a sustainable project of an eco museum for Mill Valley valuing natural resources but also the building products such as mills, the canals, aqueducts, all an integral and inseparable part of a unique and unrepeatable ecosystem.

Oscan and Umbrian have a future perfect suffix -us-/–ur–. Although various sources for this suffix have been suggested, none satisfactorily explain its origin. This article evaluates these previous attempts and makes a new proposal: the Oscan and Umbrian future perfect can be identified as a perfect suffix *-ō- plus the future suffix *-s-. The perfect suffix *-ō-, although not directly attested in Oscan and Umbrian, is found in the related language South Picene. The origin of the *-ō- suffix is traced back to inherited perfects of the type 3sg. *Ce-CoH-e, e.g. *de-doh3-e ‘gave’ > *dedō → Umbrian teřust ‘(s)he will have given’, with subsequent reanalysis of the root vowel *-ō- as a suffix. A parallel for this development is found in Gaulish.

The evidence for the treatment in Oscan of *-u- after a coronal is examined. In the areas which use the Oscan alphabet (Campania and Samnium), this has become [i̯u]; in the areas which use the Greek alphabet (Lucania and Bruttium) it has become [y]. Contrary to previous assumptions, there is evidence for a change to [y] in the Latin-alphabet Tabula Bantina from Lucania, since the in the forms petiropert ‘four times’ and manim ‘hand’ is most easily explained as coming directly from *-u-. Evidence from both relative and absolute chronology shows that this difference must be a dialectal rather than a chronological split between Campania-Samnium and Lucania-Bruttium, since the different reflexes of *-u- are already in place by the time of our earliest evidence, and are maintained throughout the history of Oscan.

The Sabellian branch of the Italic languages of Indo-European comprises Oscan, Umbrian, South Picene and a number of smaller varieties. This paper analyses the current model for subgrouping these languages and gives detailed consideration to a number of phonological and morphological isoglosses. The publication of a new corpus of the Sabellian inscriptions allows a better understanding of the relative chronology for language change in the Sabellian branch, and this leads to a new perspective on the interrelations between the Sabellian languages.

This article reconsiders one of the best-known examples of Oscan epigraphy — the inscription which commemorates the testament of Vibius Adiranus to thevereiia-of Pompeii. It has been widely accepted that this inscription is a first-centurya.d.copy of a second-centuryb.c.original, and is therefore the latest extant example of Oscan in a formal public inscription. This is challenged here with an analysis of both the linguistic detail and archaeological context, and it is shown that this inscription itself is more likely to be the original. The re-dating suggested here has implications for our understanding of language use at Pompeii; it also facilitates more accurate estimates of when the deaths of the Italic languages took place.

Desde 2011 estamos desarrollando una línea de investigación sobre las fuentes escritas para la rebelión de Espartaco. En este artículo vamos a repasar las pocas evidencias arqueológicas de dicha rebelión, sobre todo la pintura aparecida hace tiempo en Pompeya donde se representa a un jinete con una inscripción en osco referida a un Spartaks. La hipótesis es que dicha representación alude a un episodio concreto de dicha rebelión fechable en el año 73 a. C. (la derrota y muerte del pretor Cosinio a manos de Espartaco). Since 2011 we are developing a research about the written sources on the rebellion of Spartacus. In this paper we are to review some archaeological evidences on that rebellion. The most important of these is the wall graffito discovered some decades ago in Pompey representing a horseman with an inscription in Oscan language referring to a Spartaks. Our hypothesis is that this painting represents a specific episode of this rebellion dated in 73 b. C. (the defeat and murder of Praetor Cosinius by Spartacus).

This paper investigates the status of possessive expressions in Oscan and Umbrian in an attempt to determine whether these languages are “be-languages” like the conservative Hittite or Latvian, or “have-languages” like the innovating Latin or German. The inquiry is carried out by examining approximately thirty tokens of the “have” verb from the Oscan Tabula Bantina and the Umbrian Iguvine Tables. Based entirely on this evidence, the conclusion is that Umbrian has changed from the inherited mihi est type with be to the have type, while Oscan remains a be-language without a fully developed verb of possession.

A dedication to Numisius Martius, engraved on the rim of a bronze jug, was found in the necropolis of Saliere (Capena), chamber tomb n. 180. The text is : Mar(aeus) Popi(dius) St(ati) f(ilius) N(umisio) Mart(io) d(onum) d(at) me(rito). While other editors read the praenomen and gentilicium as Mar(cus) and Popi(us) or Popi(llius), in this study have been prefered the forms Mar(eus) and Popi(dius), that, together with the patronimic Statius, give an Oscan connotation to the character’s name. The object on which was engraved the text is the kind of tipology of the ovoidal-careenated jug, known as Boesterd 273. The original place of production was in Etruria. The analysis of the object, combined with the epigraphic datas, allows us to date the Capena’s handmade article to the last decades of the 3rd century BC. The dedication phrase makes possible to formulate the hypothesis that the jug was colocated in a sanctuary, maybe just the near Lucus Feroniae. Perhaps taken from this place during the sack of Hannibal in 211 b. C., the jug was placed in the grave afterwards., Dalla tomba a camera n. 180 della necropoli capenate delle Saliere, proviene una dedica a Numisius Martius, incisa sul labbro di una brocca di bronzo. L’iscrizione recita : Mar(aeus) Popi(dius) St(ati) f(ilius) N(umisio) Mart(io) d(onum) d(at) me(rito). Mentre altri editori hanno proposto di sciogliere il prenome e il gentilizio del dedicante, rispettivamente, in Mar(cus) e Popi(us) o Popi(llius), in questa sede si sono preferite le forme Mar(aeus) e Popi(dius), che, insieme al patronimico Statius, conferiscono una connotazione osca all’onomastica del personaggio. Il supporto su cui è inciso il testo rientra nella tipologia della brocca ovoide-carenata, già nota come Boesterd 273, il cui luogo d’origine va riconosciuto in Etruria. L’analisi del manufatto, combinata col dato epigrafico, consente di datare l’esemplare di Capena ai decenni finali del III sec. a. C. La formula di dedica rende plausibile l’ipotesi che in origine l’oggetto si trovasse in un santuario, probabilmente proprio il vicino Lucus Feroniae. Da qui, asportata forse in seguito al saccheggio annibalico del 211 a. C., la brocca potrebbe essere giunta nella tomba in un secondo momento., Ferrante Cristina. Una brocca di bronzo con dedica a Numisius Martius dalla necropoli delle Saliere a Capena. In: Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz, 19, 2008. pp. 7-25.

In this paper we take into account two Oscan words, sakaraklúm and fíísnú; these words, strictly related between each other, belong to the sanctuary environment. We try to define the lexical value based on their context of use. We therefore consider the types of documents witnessing them (i.e. the public inscriptions of the samnitic sanctuary of Pietrabbondante, Isernia, and the Cippus Abellanus) and the distribution of the two terms within these texts (the complementary distribution in the texts from Pietrabbondante and the coexistence of these terms in the Cippus Abellanus). We can find further elements for a more accurate definition of their lexical value in the grammatical structure of the investigated texts.

The “formula” osca. Maternal filiation or identification of the son? The formula matronimica in an oscan defixio (the so-called “curse of Vibia”: Vetter 6) it is not, as Lejeune sustained, an insult addressed to the subject of the curse (“child of demoniessa” or something similar), but it is the indication of the real filiation. The matronimico in the curses is a use present in a very huge area, from the Mediterranean to the Ancient India. The purpose is the right identification of the execrated person.

This paper aims at distinguishing what pertains to stylistic varieties and what to sociolects in historical linguistics. Several texts in Oscan language containing curses (defixiones), both in enchoric and Greek scripts, have been analyzed, in order to ascertain the efficacy of modern sociolinguistic categories within a traditional diachronic frame. On the grounds of thorough inspection of specific markers, such as the presence of right dislocation, the dropping of final /m/, of anteconsonantal /n/, of final /d/ and of semiconsonantal /j/ in the long diphthong /o:j/, all occurring in the so-called Vibia’s curse, the defixio Vetter 6 is interpreted as a typical product of a low variety of Oscan from the sole diastratic point of view.

The philologist Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775–1853) combined his career as a senior master at schools in Frankfurt and Hannover with the publication of school textbooks on German and Latin, and academic research in ancient history and languages. He was a co-founder of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica series of historical sources, still widely consulted today, and is also remembered for his role in the decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform. During his lifetime he was best known for his studies of the Umbrian and Oscan languages (also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection) and this collection of essays on the geography and history of pre-Roman Italy, published 1840–2. Grotefend emphasises the need to consult the earliest, near-contemporary Greek sources, rather than relying on later accounts. He discusses Greek and Roman myths relating to Italy, the different ethnic groups within the pre-Roman population, and evidence for their family or clan names.

The Latin quantifier

From the seventh to the fourth century BCE, the defining characteristic of the cultures of central Italy was their similarity to one another rather than their differences. The most striking feature of central Italian cultural koine , may be the number of parallel expressions in the ritual texts composed in the different languages of the koine , such as Latin, Umbrian and Etruscan, expressions that have become entrenched in the ritual practice of these different cultures that it is rarely possible even to guess where a given parallel originated. This chapter presents two case studies of the interplay between prayer and ritual gesture in Latin literature. One compelling site of negotiation between spoken prayer and written ritual instruction is the expression dono - ducite - doque in a fragment of the Annals of Quintus Ennius, a series of verbs that closely resembles the ritual formula donum dare and its counterparts in Oscan and Umbrian. Keywords: central Italian cultural koine ; Etruscan; Latin; Oscan; spoken prayer; Umbrian; written ritual instruction

Introduction. 'So many Sicilies': introducing language and linguistic contact in ancient Sicily O. Tribulato Part I. Non-Classical Languages: 1. Language relations in Sicily: evidence for the speech of the SIGMAiotakappaalphanuomicron , the SIGMAiotakappaepsilonlambdaomicron and others P. Poccetti 2. The Elymian language S. Marchesini 3. Phoenician and Punic in Sicily M. G. Amadasi Guzzo 4. Oscan in Sicily J. Clackson 5. Traces of language contact in Sicilian onomastics: the evidence from the Great Curse of Selinous G. Meiser 6. Coins and language in ancient Sicily O. Simkin Part II. Greek: 7. Sicilian Greek before the fourth century BC: a basic grammar S. Mimbrera Olarte 8. The Sicilian Doric koine S. Mimbrera Olarte 9. Intimations of koine in Sicilian Doric: the information provided by the Antiatticist A. C. Cassio 10. 'We speak Peloponnesian': tradition and linguistic identity in postclassical Sicilian literature A. Willi Part III. Latin: 11. Siculi bilingues? Latin in the inscriptions of early Roman Sicily O. Tribulato 12. Sicily in the Roman imperial period: language and society K. Korhonen.

M. Manlius T. f. A. n. Capitolinus (the cognomen refers to the Capitol of Rome (see Capitol) as his place of residence), Roman patrician (see Patricians) and consul in 392 bce, won the battle at the Algidus mountain (today Artemisio) against the Oscan Samnite tribe of the Aequians (Aequi). Keywords: biography; historical fiction; political history; Roman history

The ancient languages of Italy known from inscriptions and from literary testimonia have in common the fact that they all die, with the sole exceptions of Latin and Greek. This chapter offers some general theoretical considerations with reference to relatively well-known texts, nearly all epigraphic. It overviews some of the languages in contact with Latin in Italy in the Republican period. The non-Indo-European language Etruscan appears in one or two of the cases considered in this chapter, but the large majority of examples concern contact between Latin and Oscan or Umbrian, both closely related to Latin, both members of the Sabellic group of the Italic branch of the Indo-European family. Author offers brief illustration of linguistic cultural objects under the following five headings: script; writing habits; dating formulae; institutions and institutional formulae; and naming conventions. In each case, he suggests, a degree of bilingualism is presupposed by these cultural borrowings. Keywords:bilingualism; epigraphic; Etruscan; Greek; Italy; language shift; Latin; linguistic; Republican period; Umbrian

Demonstrative grammeme *i-/*eyo-/*eyso- is attested in Umbrian and in Oscan through a large number of examples: one hundred and twelve in Umbrian, and fifty-two in Oscan. Besides the demonstrative grammeme *i-/*eyo-/*eyso- itself, three other grammemes are analysed in the present chapter, a discourse deictic adverb itek, which is attested only in Umbrian, through one example, and the pronominal and adnominal grammemes which correspond to Latin ¯idem, that is, Umbrian erihont and Oscan isidum, attested respectively through eleven and seventeen examples. This chapter analyses all the Umbrian examples of *i-/*eyo-/*eyso-, of *oyso and of the derived grammemes, and then the Oscan examples of *i-/ *eyo-/*eyso- and isidum. It examines themorphological features of this grammeme, which raise some specific difficulties, and put forward some hypotheses as to the uses of all these forms in the Sabellian languages. The grammaticalisation may have arisen fromthe use of e´rek as a nominatiuus pendens.Keywords:*i-/*eyo-/*eyso-; *oyso; grammaticalisation; Oscan; Sabellian language; Umbrian